Gorgias.................................................................................................................................................................1

Plato.........................................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................1

GORGIAS ..............................................................................................................................................29

In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various

subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules

of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the

Theaetetus, that the digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the dialogues there is

also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and

references are interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We must not neglect this

unity, but neither must we attempt to confine the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea.

Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this matter. First, they have endeavoured to

hang the dialogues upon one another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and

contradictory assertions respecting their order and sequence. The mantle of Schleiermacher has descended

upon his successors, who have applied his method with the most various results. The value and use of the

method has been hardly, if at all, examined either by him or them. Secondly, they have extended almost

indefinitely the scope of each separate dialogue; in this way they think that they have escaped all difficulties,

not seeing that what they have gained in generality they have lost in truth and distinctness. Metaphysical

conceptions easily pass into one another; and the simpler notions of antiquity, which we can only realize by

an effort, imperceptibly blend with the more familiar theories of modern philosophers. An eye for proportion

is needed (his own art of measuring) in the study of Plato, as well as of other great artists. We may hardly

admit that the moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of knowledge and opinion,

being and appearance, are never far off in a Platonic discussion. But because they are in the background, we

should not bring them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all the dialogues.

There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines of the building; but the use of this is

limited, and may be easily exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural form and

connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues are finished works of art, we may find a reason

for everything, and lose the highest characteristic of art, which is simplicity. Most great works receive a new

light from a new and original mind. But whether these new lights are true or only suggestive, will depend on

their agreement with the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidence which can be urged in support of

them. When a theory is running away with us, criticism does a friendly office in counselling moderation, and

Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the appearance of two or more subjects.

Under the cover of rhetoric higher themes are introduced; the argument expands into a general view of the

good and evil of man. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain a sound definition of his art from

Gorgias, Socrates assumes the existence of a universal art of flattery or simulation having several

branches:this is the genus of which rhetoric is only one, and not the highest species. To flattery is opposed

the true and noble art of life which he who possesses seeks always to impart to others, and which at last

triumphs, if not here, at any rate in another world. These two aspects of life and knowledge appear to be the

two leading ideas of the dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in the treatment of the soul

as well as of the body, are conceived under the forms of true and false art. In the development of this

opposition there arise various other questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of Socrates (paradoxes as

they are to the world in general, ideals as they may be more worthily called): (1) that to do is worse than to

suffer evil; and (2) that when a man has done evil he had better be punished than unpunished; to which may

be added (3) a third Socratic paradox or ideal, that bad men do what they think best, but not what they desire,

for the desire of all is towards the good. That pleasure is to be distinguished from good is proved by the

simultaneousness of pleasure and pain, and by the possibility of the bad having in certain cases pleasures as

great as those of the good, or even greater. Not merely rhetoricians, but poets, musicians, and other artists, the

whole tribe of statesmen, past as well as present, are included in the class of flatterers. The true and false

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles

respectively correspond; and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is

deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Polus, ironical and sarcastic

in his encounter with Callicles. In the first division the question is askedWhat is rhetoric? To this there is

no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred

to the hands of his disciple Polus, who rushes to the defence of his master. The answer has at last to be given

by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Polus, he must enlighten him upon the

great subject of shams or flatteries. When Polus finds his favourite art reduced to the level of cookery, he

replies that at any rate rhetoricians, like despots, have great power. Socrates denies that they have any real

power, and hence arise the three paradoxes already mentioned. Although they are strange to him, Polus is at

last convinced of their truth; at least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises. Thus the

second act of the dialogue closes. Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is

good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few

strong. When he is confuted he withdraws from the argument, and leaves Socrates to arrive at the conclusion

by himself. The conclusion is that there are two kinds of statesmanship, a higher and a lowerthat which

makes the people better, and that which only flatters them, and he exhorts Callicles to choose the higher. The

dialogue terminates with a mythus of a final judgment, in which there will be no more flattery or disguise,

The characters of the three interlocutors also correspond to the parts which are assigned to them. Gorgias is

the great rhetorician, now advanced in years, who goes from city to city displaying his talents, and is

celebrated throughout Greece. Like all the Sophists in the dialogues of Plato, he is vain and boastful, yet he

has also a certain dignity, and is treated by Socrates with considerable respect. But he is no match for him in

dialectics. Although he has been teaching rhetoric all his life, he is still incapable of defining his own art.

When his ideas begin to clear up, he is unwilling to admit that rhetoric can be wholly separated from justice

and injustice, and this lingering sentiment of morality, or regard for public opinion, enables Socrates to detect

him in a contradiction. Like Protagoras, he is described as of a generous nature; he expresses his approbation

of Socrates' manner of approaching a question; he is quite 'one of Socrates' sort, ready to be refuted as well as

to refute,' and very eager that Callicles and Socrates should have the game out. He knows by experience that

rhetoric exercises great influence over other men, but he is unable to explain the puzzle how rhetoric can

Polus is an impetuous youth, a runaway 'colt,' as Socrates describes him, who wanted originally to have taken

the place of Gorgias under the pretext that the old man was tired, and now avails himself of the earliest

opportunity to enter the lists. He is said to be the author of a work on rhetoric, and is again mentioned in the

Phaedrus, as the inventor of balanced or double forms of speech (compare Gorg.; Symp.). At first he is

violent and illmannered, and is angry at seeing his master overthrown. But in the judicious hands of

Socrates he is soon restored to goodhumour, and compelled to assent to the required conclusion. Like

Gorgias, he is overthrown because he compromises; he is unwilling to say that to do is fairer or more

honourable than to suffer injustice. Though he is fascinated by the power of rhetoric, and dazzled by the

splendour of success, he is not insensible to higher arguments. Plato may have felt that there would be an

incongruity in a youth maintaining the cause of injustice against the world. He has never heard the other side

of the question, and he listens to the paradoxes, as they appear to him, of Socrates with evident astonishment.

He can hardly understand the meaning of Archelaus being miserable, or of rhetoric being only useful in self

Callicles, in whose house they are assembled, is introduced on the stage: he is with difficulty convinced that

Socrates is in earnest; for if these things are true, then, as he says with real emotion, the foundations of

society are upside down. In him another type of character is represented; he is neither sophist nor

philosopher, but man of the world, and an accomplished Athenian gentleman. He might be described in

modern language as a cynic or materialist, a lover of power and also of pleasure, and unscrupulous in his

means of attaining both. There is no desire on his part to offer any compromise in the interests of morality;

nor is any concession made by him. Like Thrasymachus in the Republic, though he is not of the same weak

and vulgar class, he consistently maintains that might is right. His great motive of action is political ambition;

in this he is characteristically Greek. Like Anytus in the Meno, he is the enemy of the Sophists; but favours

the new art of rhetoric, which he regards as an excellent weapon of attack and defence. He is a despiser of

mankind as he is of philosophy, and sees in the laws of the state only a violation of the order of nature, which

intended that the stronger should govern the weaker (compare Republic). Like other men of the world who

are of a speculative turn of mind, he generalizes the bad side of human nature, and has easily brought down

his principles to his practice. Philosophy and poetry alike supply him with distinctions suited to his view of

human life. He has a good will to Socrates, whose talents he evidently admires, while he censures the puerile

use which he makes of them. He expresses a keen intellectual interest in the argument. Like Anytus, again, he

has a sympathy with other men of the world; the Athenian statesmen of a former generation, who showed no

weakness and made no mistakes, such as Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal of

human character is a man of great passions and great powers, which he has developed to the utmost, and

which he uses in his own enjoyment and in the government of others. Had Critias been the name instead of

Callicles, about whom we know nothing from other sources, the opinions of the man would have seemed to

And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist or rhetorician, is concentrated the

spirit of evil against which Socrates is contending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the many contending

against the one wise man, of which the Sophists, as he describes them in the Republic, are the imitators rather

than the authors, being themselves carried away by the great tide of public opinion. Socrates approaches his

antagonist warily from a distance, with a sort of irony which touches with a light hand both his personal vices

(probably in allusion to some scandal of the day) and his servility to the populace. At the same time, he is in

most profound earnest, as Chaerephon remarks. Callicles soon loses his temper, but the more he is irritated,

the more provoking and matter of fact does Socrates become. A repartee of his which appears to have been

really made to the 'omniscient' Hippias, according to the testimony of Xenophon (Mem.), is introduced. He is

called by Callicles a popular declaimer, and certainly shows that he has the power, in the words of Gorgias,

of being 'as long as he pleases,' or 'as short as he pleases' (compare Protag.). Callicles exhibits great ability in

defending himself and attacking Socrates, whom he accuses of trifling and wordsplitting; he is scandalized

that the legitimate consequences of his own argument should be stated in plain terms; after the manner of

men of the world, he wishes to preserve the decencies of life. But he cannot consistently maintain the bad

sense of words; and getting confused between the abstract notions of better, superior, stronger, he is easily

turned round by Socrates, and only induced to continue the argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when

Socrates is describing the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to identify himself with the people, he

The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the Protagoras and Meno. As in other

dialogues, he is the enemy of the Sophists and rhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards as

another variety of the same species. His behaviour is governed by that of his opponents; the least forwardness

or egotism on their part is met by a corresponding irony on the part of Socrates. He must speak, for

philosophy will not allow him to be silent. He is indeed more ironical and provoking than in any other of

Plato's writings: for he is 'fooled to the top of his bent' by the worldliness of Callicles. But he is also more

deeply in earnest. He rises higher than even in the Phaedo and Crito: at first enveloping his moral convictions

in a cloud of dust and dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in them. As in the Protagoras

and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of irony, he makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his

adversary has refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his own fate is hanging over him.

He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher of politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to

war with the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will be condemned. But he will be justified in the

world below. Then the position of Socrates and Callicles will be reversed; all those things 'unfit for ears

polite' which Callicles has prophesied as likely to happen to him in this life, the insulting language, the box

on the ears, will recoil upon his assailant. (Compare Republic, and the similar reversal of the position of the

There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of the generals after the battle of Arginusae,

which he ironically attributes to his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the assembly should be taken.

This is said to have happened 'last year' (B.C. 406), and therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been

fixed at 405 B.C., when Socrates would already have been an old man. The date is clearly marked, but is

scarcely reconcilable with another indication of time, viz. the 'recent' usurpation of Archelaus, which

occurred in the year 413; and still less with the 'recent' death of Pericles, who really died twentyfour years

previously (429 B.C.) and is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a past age; or with the mention of

Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spoken of as a living witness. But we shall hereafter have reason

to observe, that although there is a general consistency of times and persons in the Dialogues of Plato, a

precise dramatic date is an invention of his commentators (Preface to Republic).

The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly characteristic declaration of Socrates that he is

ignorant of the true nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same time that no one can

maintain any other view without being ridiculous. The profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and

more exclusively Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in the Memorabilia of

Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this

'among the multitude of questions' which agitate human life 'as the principle which alone remains unshaken.'

He does not insist here, any more than in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the

soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than suffering, and that a man

should be rather than seem; for the next best thing to a man's being just is that he should be corrected and

become just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself or of others; and that rhetoric should be

employed for the maintenance of the right only. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the

(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true politician of his age. In other

passages, especially in the Apology, he disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or

any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be put to death before he had done any

good to himself or others. Here he anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is 'the only man of

the present day who performs his public duties at all.' The two points of view are not really inconsistent, but

the difference between them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not in the ordinary sense,

like Alcibiades or Pericles, but in a higher one; and this will sooner or later entail the same consequences on

him. He cannot be a private man if he would; neither can he separate morals from politics. Nor is he

unwilling to be a politician, although he foresees the dangers which await him; but he must first become a

better and wiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity and uncertainty. And yet there is an

inconsistency: for should not Socrates too have taught the citizens better than to put him to death?

Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon, meets Callicles in the streets of Athens.

He is informed that he has just missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because he was desirous,

not of hearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning the nature of his art. Callicles

proposes that they shall go with him to his own house, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great

SOCRATES: Who is he?such a question as would elicit from a man the answer, 'I am a cobbler.'

Polus suggests that Gorgias may be tired, and desires to answer for him. 'Who is Gorgias?' asks Chaerephon,

imitating the manner of his master Socrates. 'One of the best of men, and a proficient in the best and noblest

of experimental arts,' etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical and balanced phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the

length and unmeaningness of the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that he has mistaken the quality

for the nature of the art, and remarks to Gorgias, that Polus has learnt how to make a speech, but not how to

answer a question. He wishes that Gorgias would answer him. Gorgias is willing enough, and replies to the

question asked by Chaerephon,that he is a rhetorician, and in Homeric language, 'boasts himself to be a

good one.' At the request of Socrates he promises to be brief; for 'he can be as long as he pleases, and as short

as he pleases.' Socrates would have him bestow his length on others, and proceeds to ask him a number of

questions, which are answered by him to his own great satisfaction, and with a brevity which excites the

admiration of Socrates. The result of the discussion may be summed up as follows:

Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and other particular arts, are also concerned with

discourse; in what way then does rhetoric differ from them? Gorgias draws a distinction between the arts

which deal with words, and the arts which have to do with external actions. Socrates extends this distinction

further, and divides all productive arts into two classes: (1) arts which may be carried on in silence; and (2)

arts which have to do with words, or in which words are coextensive with action, such as arithmetic,

geometry, rhetoric. But still Gorgias could hardly have meant to say that arithmetic was the same as rhetoric.

Even in the arts which are concerned with words there are differences. What then distinguishes rhetoric from

the other arts which have to do with words? 'The words which rhetoric uses relate to the best and greatest of

human things.' But tell me, Gorgias, what are the best? 'Health first, beauty next, wealth third,' in the words of

the old song, or how would you rank them? The arts will come to you in a body, each claiming precedence

and saying that her own good is superior to that of the restHow will you choose between them? 'I should

say, Socrates, that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to all men, and to individuals power in the state,

is the greatest good.' But what is the exact nature of this persuasion?is the persevering retort: You could

not describe Zeuxis as a painter, or even as a painter of figures, if there were other painters of figures; neither

can you define rhetoric simply as an art of persuasion, because there are other arts which persuade, such as

arithmetic, which is an art of persuasion about odd and even numbers. Gorgias is made to see the necessity of

a further limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as the art of persuading in the law courts, and in the

assembly, about the just and unjust. But still there are two sorts of persuasion: one which gives knowledge,

and another which gives belief without knowledge; and knowledge is always true, but belief may be either

true or false,there is therefore a further question: which of the two sorts of persuasion does rhetoric effect

in courts of law and assemblies? Plainly that which gives belief and not that which gives knowledge; for no

one can impart a real knowledge of such matters to a crowd of persons in a few minutes. And there is another

point to be considered:when the assembly meets to advise about walls or docks or military expeditions, the

rhetorician is not taken into counsel, but the architect, or the general. How would Gorgias explain this

phenomenon? All who intend to become disciples, of whom there are several in the company, and not

Socrates only, are eagerly asking:About what then will rhetoric teach us to persuade or advise the state?

Gorgias illustrates the nature of rhetoric by adducing the example of Themistocles, who persuaded the

Athenians to build their docks and walls, and of Pericles, whom Socrates himself has heard speaking about

the middle wall of the Piraeus. He adds that he has exercised a similar power over the patients of his brother

Herodicus. He could be chosen a physician by the assembly if he pleased, for no physician could compete

with a rhetorician in popularity and influence. He could persuade the multitude of anything by the power of

his rhetoric; not that the rhetorician ought to abuse this power any more than a boxer should abuse the art of

self defence. Rhetoric is a good thing, but, like all good things, may be unlawfully used. Neither is the

teacher of the art to be deemed unjust because his pupils are unjust and make a bad use of the lessons which

Socrates would like to know before he replies, whether Gorgias will quarrel with him if he points out a slight

inconsistency into which he has fallen, or whether he, like himself, is one who loves to be refuted. Gorgias

declares that he is quite one of his sort, but fears that the argument may be tedious to the company. The

company cheer, and Chaerephon and Callicles exhort them to proceed. Socrates gently points out the

supposed inconsistency into which Gorgias appears to have fallen, and which he is inclined to think may arise

out of a misapprehension of his own. The rhetorician has been declared by Gorgias to be more persuasive to

the ignorant than the physician, or any other expert. And he is said to be ignorant, and this ignorance of his is

regarded by Gorgias as a happy condition, for he has escaped the trouble of learning. But is he as ignorant of

just and unjust as he is of medicine or building? Gorgias is compelled to admit that if he did not know them

previously he must learn them from his teacher as a part of the art of rhetoric. But he who has learned

carpentry is a carpenter, and he who has learned music is a musician, and he who has learned justice is just.

The rhetorician then must be a just man, and rhetoric is a just thing. But Gorgias has already admitted the

opposite of this, viz. that rhetoric may be abused, and that the rhetorician may act unjustly. How is the

The fallacy of this argument is twofold; for in the first place, a man may know justice and not be justhere

is the old confusion of the arts and the virtues;nor can any teacher be expected to counteract wholly the

bent of natural character; and secondly, a man may have a degree of justice, but not sufficient to prevent him

from ever doing wrong. Polus is naturally exasperated at the sophism, which he is unable to detect; of course,

he says, the rhetorician, like every one else, will admit that he knows justice (how can he do otherwise when

pressed by the interrogations of Socrates?), but he thinks that great want of manners is shown in bringing the

argument to such a pass. Socrates ironically replies, that when old men trip, the young set them on their legs

again; and he is quite willing to retract, if he can be shown to be in error, but upon one condition, which is

that Polus studies brevity. Polus is in great indignation at not being allowed to use as many words as he

pleases in the free state of Athens. Socrates retorts, that yet harder will be his own case, if he is compelled to

stay and listen to them. After some altercation they agree (compare Protag.), that Polus shall ask and Socrates

'What is the art of Rhetoric?' says Polus. Not an art at all, replies Socrates, but a thing which in your book you

affirm to have created art. Polus asks, 'What thing?' and Socrates answers, An experience or routine of

making a sort of delight or gratification. 'But is not rhetoric a fine thing?' I have not yet told you what rhetoric

is. Will you ask me another questionWhat is cookery? 'What is cookery?' An experience or routine of

making a sort of delight or gratification. Then they are the same, or rather fall under the same class, and

rhetoric has still to be distinguished from cookery. 'What is rhetoric?' asks Polus once more. A part of a not

very creditable whole, which may be termed flattery, is the reply. 'But what part?' A shadow of a part of

politics. This, as might be expected, is wholly unintelligible, both to Gorgias and Polus; and, in order to

explain his meaning to them, Socrates draws a distinction between shadows or appearances and realities; e.g.

there is real health of body or soul, and the appearance of them; real arts and sciences, and the simulations of

them. Now the soul and body have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which attends on the

soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another art attending on the body, which has no generic

name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of which is medicine and the other gymnastic.

Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences,

as they may be termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham

or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic

And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by the gratification which they procure, they

become jumbled together and return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the length of his

speech, which was necessary to the explanation of the subject, and begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate

'Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed flatterers?' They are not esteemed at all. 'Why, have

they not great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?' They have no power, and they only do what

they think best, and never what they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which is the good.

'As if you, Socrates, would not envy the possessor of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any one

whom he pleases.' But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put any one to death; he who kills another, even

justly, is not to be envied, and he who kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer than to do

injustice. He does not consider that going about with a dagger and putting men out of the way, or setting a

house on fire, is real power. To this Polus assents, on the ground that such acts would be punished, but he is

still of opinion that evildoers, if they are unpunished, may be happy enough. He instances Archelaus, son of

Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia. Does not Socrates think him happy?Socrates would like to know

more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king to be happy, unless he knows his mental and moral

condition. Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas,

brother of Perdiccas king of Macedonand he, by every species of crime, first murdering his uncle and then

his cousin and halfbrother, obtained the kingdom. This was very wicked, and yet all the world, including

Socrates, would like to have his place. Socrates dismisses the appeal to numbers; Polus, if he will, may

summon all the rich men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers, Aristocrates, the house of Pericles, or any other

great family this is the kind of evidence which is adduced in courts of justice, where truth depends upon

numbers. But Socrates employs proof of another sort; his appeal is to one witness only,that is to say, the

person with whom he is speaking; him he will convict out of his own mouth. And he is prepared to show,

The evildoer is deemed happy if he escapes, and miserable if he suffers punishment; but Socrates thinks him

less miserable if he suffers than if he escapes. Polus is of opinion that such a paradox as this hardly deserves

refutation, and is at any rate sufficiently refuted by the fact. Socrates has only to compare the lot of the

successful tyrant who is the envy of the world, and of the wretch who, having been detected in a criminal

attempt against the state, is crucified or burnt to death. Socrates replies, that if they are both criminal they are

both miserable, but that the unpunished is the more miserable of the two. At this Polus laughs outright, which

leads Socrates to remark that laughter is a new species of refutation. Polus replies, that he is already refuted;

for if he will take the votes of the company, he will find that no one agrees with him. To this Socrates rejoins,

that he is not a public man, and (referring to his own conduct at the trial of the generals after the battle of

Arginusae) is unable to take the suffrages of any company, as he had shown on a recent occasion; he can only

deal with one witness at a time, and that is the person with whom he is arguing. But he is certain that in the

Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge that to do evil is considered the more foul or

dishonourable of the two. But what is fair and what is foul; whether the terms are applied to bodies, colours,

figures, laws, habits, studies, must they not be defined with reference to pleasure and utility? Polus assents to

this latter doctrine, and is easily persuaded that the fouler of two things must exceed either in pain or in hurt.

But the doing cannot exceed the suffering of evil in pain, and therefore must exceed in hurt. Thus doing is

proved by the testimony of Polus himself to be worse or more hurtful than suffering.

There remains the other question: Is a guilty man better off when he is punished or when he is unpunished?

Socrates replies, that what is done justly is suffered justly: if the act is just, the effect is just; if to punish is

just, to be punished is just, and therefore fair, and therefore beneficent; and the benefit is that the soul is

improved. There are three evils from which a man may suffer, and which affect him in estate, body, and

soul;these are, poverty, disease, injustice; and the foulest of these is injustice, the evil of the soul, because

that brings the greatest hurt. And there are three arts which heal these evilstrading, medicine, justiceand

the fairest of these is justice. Happy is he who has never committed injustice, and happy in the second degree

he who has been healed by punishment. And therefore the criminal should himself go to the judge as he

would to the physician, and purge away his crime. Rhetoric will enable him to display his guilt in proper

colours, and to sustain himself and others in enduring the necessary penalty. And similarly if a man has an

enemy, he will desire not to punish him, but that he shall go unpunished and become worse and worse, taking

care only that he does no injury to himself. These are at least conceivable uses of the art, and no others have

Here Callicles, who has been listening in silent amazement, asks Chaerephon whether Socrates is in earnest,

and on receiving the assurance that he is, proceeds to ask the same question of Socrates himself. For if such

doctrines are true, life must have been turned upside down, and all of us are doing the opposite of what we

Socrates replies in a style of playful irony, that before men can understand one another they must have some

common feeling. And such a community of feeling exists between himself and Callicles, for both of them are

lovers, and they have both a pair of loves; the beloved of Callicles are the Athenian Demos and Demos the

son of Pyrilampes; the beloved of Socrates are Alcibiades and philosophy. The peculiarity of Callicles is that

he can never contradict his loves; he changes as his Demos changes in all his opinions; he watches the

countenance of both his loves, and repeats their sentiments, and if any one is surprised at his sayings and

doings, the explanation of them is, that he is not a free agent, but must always be imitating his two loves. And

this is the explanation of Socrates' peculiarities also. He is always repeating what his mistress, Philosophy, is

saying to him, who unlike his other love, Alcibiades, is ever the same, ever true. Callicles must refute her, or

he will never be at unity with himself; and discord in life is far worse than the discord of musical sounds.

Callicles answers, that Gorgias was overthrown because, as Polus said, in compliance with popular prejudice

he had admitted that if his pupil did not know justice the rhetorician must teach him; and Polus has been

similarly entangled, because his modesty led him to admit that to suffer is more honourable than to do

injustice. By custom 'yes,' but not by nature, says Callicles. And Socrates is always playing between the two

points of view, and putting one in the place of the other. In this very argument, what Polus only meant in a

conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a law of nature. For convention says that 'injustice is

dishonourable,' but nature says that 'might is right.' And we are always taming down the nobler spirits among

us to the conventional level. But sometimes a great man will rise up and reassert his original rights, trampling

under foot all our formularies, and then the light of natural justice shines forth. Pindar says, 'Law, the king of

all, does violence with high hand;' as is indeed proved by the example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of

This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave philosophy and pass on to the real business

of life. A little philosophy is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not 'passed his

metaphysics' before he has grown up to manhood will never know the world. Philosophers are ridiculous

when they take to politics, and I dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to philosophy:

'Every man,' as Euripides says, 'is fondest of that in which he is best.' Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the

lisp of infancy, and should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grownup man lisps or studies

philosophy, I should like to beat him. None of those overrefined natures ever come to any good; they avoid

the busy haunts of men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few admiring youths, and never giving

For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you, as Zethus says to Amphion in the play, that you

have 'a noble soul disguised in a puerile exterior.' And I would have you consider the danger which you and

other philosophers incur. For you would not know how to defend yourself if any one accused you in a

lawcourt,there you would stand, with gaping mouth and dizzy brain, and might be murdered, robbed,

boxed on the ears with impunity. Take my advice, then, and get a little common sense; leave to others these

Socrates professes to have found in Callicles the philosopher's touchstone; and he is certain that any opinion

in which they both agree must be the very truth. Callicles has all the three qualities which are needed in a

criticknowledge, goodwill, frankness; Gorgias and Polus, although learned men, were too modest, and

their modesty made them contradict themselves. But Callicles is welleducated; and he is not too modest to

speak out (of this he has already given proof), and his goodwill is shown both by his own profession and by

his giving the same caution against philosophy to Socrates, which Socrates remembers hearing him give long

ago to his own clique of friends. He will pledge himself to retract any error into which he may have fallen,

and which Callicles may point out. But he would like to know first of all what he and Pindar mean by natural

justice. Do they suppose that the rule of justice is the rule of the stronger or of the better?' 'There is no

difference.' Then are not the many superior to the one, and the opinions of the many better? And their opinion

is that justice is equality, and that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer wrong. And as they are the

superior or stronger, this opinion of theirs must be in accordance with natural as well as conventional justice.

'Why will you continue splitting words? Have I not told you that the superior is the better?' But what do you

mean by the better? Tell me that, and please to be a little milder in your language, if you do not wish to drive

me away. 'I mean the worthier, the wiser.' You mean to say that one man of sense ought to rule over ten

thousand fools? 'Yes, that is my meaning.' Ought the physician then to have a larger share of meats and

drinks? or the weaver to have more coats, or the cobbler larger shoes, or the farmer more seed? 'You are

always saying the same things, Socrates.' Yes, and on the same subjects too; but you are never saying the

same things. For, first, you defined the superior to be the stronger, and then the wiser, and now something

else;what DO you mean? 'I mean men of political ability, who ought to govern and to have more than the

governed.' Than themselves? 'What do you mean?' I mean to say that every man is his own governor. 'I see

that you mean those dolts, the temperate. But my doctrine is, that a man should let his desires grow, and take

the means of satisfying them. To the many this is impossible, and therefore they combine to prevent him. But

if he is a king, and has power, how base would he be in submitting to them! To invite the common herd to be

lord over him, when he might have the enjoyment of all things! For the truth is, Socrates, that luxury and

Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what other men only think. According to his view,

those who want nothing are not happy. 'Why,' says Callicles, 'if they were, stones and the dead would be

happy.' Socrates in reply is led into a halfserious, halfcomic vein of reflection. 'Who knows,' as Euripides

says, 'whether life may not be death, and death life?' Nay, there are philosophers who maintain that even in

life we are dead, and that the body (soma) is the tomb (sema) of the soul. And some ingenious Sicilian has

made an allegory, in which he represents fools as the uninitiated, who are supposed to be carrying water to a

vessel, which is full of holes, in a similarly holey sieve, and this sieve is their own soul. The idea is fanciful,

but nevertheless is a figure of a truth which I want to make you acknowledge, viz. that the life of contentment

is better than the life of indulgence. Are you disposed to admit that? 'Far otherwise.' Then hear another

parable. The life of selfcontentment and selfindulgence may be represented respectively by two men, who

are filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,the jars of the one are sound, and the jars of the other

leaky; the first fils his jars, and has no more trouble with them; the second is always filling them, and would

suffer extreme misery if he desisted. Are you of the same opinion still? 'Yes, Socrates, and the figure

expresses what I mean. For true pleasure is a perpetual stream, flowing in and flowing out. To be hungry and

always eating, to be thirsty and always drinking, and to have all the other desires and to satisfy them, that, as I

admit, is my idea of happiness.' And to be itching and always scratching? 'I do not deny that there may be

happiness even in that.' And to indulge unnatural desires, if they are abundantly satisfied? Callicles is

indignant at the introduction of such topics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are introduced, not by

him, but by the maintainer of the identity of pleasure and good. Will Callicles still maintain this? 'Yes, for the

sake of consistency, he will.' The answer does not satisfy Socrates, who fears that he is losing his touchstone.

A profession of seriousness on the part of Callicles reassures him, and they proceed with the argument.

Pleasure and good are the same, but knowledge and courage are not the same either with pleasure or good, or

with one another. Socrates disproves the first of these statements by showing that two opposites cannot

coexist, but must alternate with one anotherto be well and ill together is impossible. But pleasure and pain

are simultaneous, and the cessation of them is simultaneous; e.g. in the case of drinking and thirsting,

whereas good and evil are not simultaneous, and do not cease simultaneously, and therefore pleasure cannot

Callicles has already lost his temper, and can only be persuaded to go on by the interposition of Gorgias.

Socrates, having already guarded against objections by distinguishing courage and knowledge from pleasure

and good, proceeds:The good are good by the presence of good, and the bad are bad by the presence of

evil. And the brave and wise are good, and the cowardly and foolish are bad. And he who feels pleasure is

good, and he who feels pain is bad, and both feel pleasure and pain in nearly the same degree, and sometimes

the bad man or coward in a greater degree. Therefore the bad man or coward is as good as the brave or may

Callicles endeavours now to avert the inevitable absurdity by affirming that he and all mankind admitted

some pleasures to be good and others bad. The good are the beneficial, and the bad are the hurtful, and we

should choose the one and avoid the other. But this, as Socrates observes, is a return to the old doctrine of

Callicles assents to this, and Socrates, finding that they are agreed in distinguishing pleasure from good,

returns to his old division of empirical habits, or shams, or flatteries, which study pleasure only, and the arts

which are concerned with the higher interests of soul and body. Does Callicles agree to this division?

Callicles will agree to anything, in order that he may get through the argument. Which of the arts then are

flatteries? Fluteplaying, harpplaying, choral exhibitions, the dithyrambics of Cinesias are all equally

condemned on the ground that they give pleasure only; and Meles the harpplayer, who was the father of

Cinesias, failed even in that. The stately muse of Tragedy is bent upon pleasure, and not upon improvement.

Poetry in general is only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women, and children. And the

orators are very far from speaking with a view to what is best; their way is to humour the assembly as if they

Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others have a real regard for their fellowcitizens.

Granted; then there are two species of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has a real regard for the

citizens. But where are the orators among whom you find the latter? Callicles admits that there are none

remaining, but there were such in the days when Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and the great Pericles were

still alive. Socrates replies that none of these were true artists, setting before themselves the duty of bringing

order out of disorder. The good man and true orator has a settled design, running through his life, to which he

conforms all his words and actions; he desires to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all virtue

and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the physician who will not allow the sick man to

indulge his appetites with a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising selfrestraint. And this is

good for the soul, and better than the unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.

Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this point, turns restive, and suggests that Socrates

shall answer his own questions. 'Then,' says Socrates, 'one man must do for two;' and though he had hoped to

have given Callicles an 'Amphion' in return for his 'Zethus,' he is willing to proceed; at the same time, he

hopes that Callicles will correct him, if he falls into error. He recapitulates the advantages which he has

The pleasant is not the same as the goodCallicles and I are agreed about that,but pleasure is to be

pursued for the sake of the good, and the good is that of which the presence makes us good; we and all things

good have acquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or soul, of things or persons, is not

attained by accident, but is due to order and harmonious arrangement. And the soul which has order is better

than the soul which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore good, and the intemperate is

bad. And he who is temperate is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the perfection of goodness

and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate whom you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched.

He therefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid intemperance, and if possible escape

the necessity of punishment, but if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this way states and

individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, as the wise tell us, is the bond of heaven and earth, of gods

and men. Callicles has never discovered the power of geometrical proportion in both worlds; he would have

men aim at disproportion and excess. But if he be wrong in this, and if selfcontrol is the true secret of

happiness, then the paradox is true that the only use of rhetoric is in selfaccusation, and Polus was right in

saying that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias was right in saying that the rhetorician

must be a just man. And you were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in saying that I

might be accused or put to death or boxed on the ears with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to

strike is worse than to be strickento do than to suffer. What I said then is now made fast in adamantine

bonds. I myself know not the true nature of these things, but I know that no one can deny my words and not

be ridiculous. To do wrong is the greatest of evils, and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil. He who

would avoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler; and to be the friend he must be the equal of the

ruler, and must also resemble him. Under his protection he will suffer no evil, but will he also do no evil?

Nay, will he not rather do all the evil which he can and escape? And in this way the greatest of all evils will

befall him. 'But this imitator of the tyrant,' rejoins Callicles, 'will kill any one who does not similarly imitate

him.' Socrates replies that he is not deaf, and that he has heard that repeated many times, and can only reply,

that a bad man will kill a good one. 'Yes, and that is the provoking thing.' Not provoking to a man of sense

who is not studying the arts which will preserve him from danger; and this, as you say, is the use of rhetoric

in courts of justice. But how many other arts are there which also save men from death, and are yet quite

humble in their pretensionssuch as the art of swimming, or the art of the pilot? Does not the pilot do men

at least as much service as the rhetorician, and yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does not charge

more than two obols, and when he disembarks is quite unassuming in his demeanour? The reason is that he is

not certain whether he has done his passengers any good in saving them from death, if one of them is

diseased in body, and still more if he is diseased in mindwho can say? The engineer too will often save

whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not allow your son to marry his daughter, or his son to

marry yours. But what reason is there in this? For if virtue only means the saving of life, whether your own or

another's, you have no right to despise him or any practiser of saving arts. But is not virtue something

different from saving and being saved? I would have you rather consider whether you ought not to disregard

length of life, and think only how you can live best, leaving all besides to the will of Heaven. For you must

not expect to have influence either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son of Pyrilampes, unless

'There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not entirely believe you.'

That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a little more conversation. You remember the

two processesone which was directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to making men as good as

possible. And those who have the care of the city should make the citizens as good as possible. But who

would undertake a public building, if he had never had a teacher of the art of building, and had never

constructed a building before? or who would undertake the duty of statephysician, if he had never cured

either himself or any one else? Should we not examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And as

Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine him? Whom has he made better? For we have

already admitted that this is the statesman's proper business. And we must ask the same question about

Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles. Whom did they make better? Nay, did not Pericles

make the citizens worse? For he gave them pay, and at first he was very popular with them, but at last they

condemned him to death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals who, having received them gentle,

taught them to kick and butt, and man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only made him

wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he could not have been a good statesman. The same tale

might be repeated about Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades. But the charioteer who keeps his seat at first is not

thrown out when he gains greater experience and skill. The inference is, that the statesman of a past age were

no better than those of our own. They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and harbours, but they

did not improve the character of the citizens. I have told you again and again (and I purposely use the same

images) that the soul, like the body, may be treated in two waysthere is the meaner and the higher art. You

seemed to understand what I said at the time, but when I ask you who were the really good statesmen, you

answeras if I asked you who were the good trainers, and you answered, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus,

the author of the Sicilian cookerybook, Sarambus, the vintner. And you would be affronted if I told you that

these are a parcel of cooks who make men fat only to make them thin. And those whom they have fattened

applaud them, instead of finding fault with them, and lay the blame of their subsequent disorders on their

physicians. In this respect, Callicles, you are like them; you applaud the statesmen of old, who pandered to

the vices of the citizens, and filled the city with docks and harbours, but neglected virtue and justice. And

when the fit of illness comes, the citizens who in like manner applauded Themistocles, Pericles, and others,

will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors. The

old story is always being repeated'after all his services, the ungrateful city banished him, or condemned

him to death.' As if the statesman should not have taught the city better! He surely cannot blame the state for

having unjustly used him, any more than the sophist or teacher can find fault with his pupils if they cheat

him. And the sophist and orator are in the same case; although you admire rhetoric and despise sophistic,

whereas sophistic is really the higher of the two. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of virtue

or politics takes no money, because this is the only kind of service which makes the disciple desirous of

Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes of serving the state Callicles invites

him:'to the inferior and ministerial one,' is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of avoiding death,

replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough, and would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill

the good. But he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for him, because he remarks that he is the only

person who teaches the true art of politics. And very probably, as in the case which he described to Polus, he

may be the physician who is tried by a jury of children. He cannot say that he has procured the citizens any

pleasure, and if any one charges him with perplexing them, or with reviling their elders, he will not be able to

make them understand that he has only been actuated by a desire for their good. And therefore there is no

saying what his fate may be. 'And do you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a good

condition?' Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self help, which is never to have said or done any wrong to

himself or others. If I had not this kind of selfhelp, I should be ashamed; but if I die for want of your

flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For death is no evil, but to go to the world below laden with offences

Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their death, and when judgment had been given

upon them they departedthe good to the islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance. But as they

were still living, and had their clothes on at the time when they were being judged, there was favouritism, and

Zeus, when he came to the throne, was obliged to alter the mode of procedure, and try them after death,

having first sent down Prometheus to take away from them the foreknowledge of death. Minos,

Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed to be the judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and

Minos was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separation of soul and body, but after death soul and

body alike retain their characteristics; the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are all distinguishable. Some

prince or potentate, perhaps even the great king himself, appears before Rhadamanthus, and he instantly

detects him, though he knows not who he is; he sees the scars of perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to

For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishmentthe curable and the incurable. The curable are

those who are benefited by their punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus, who benefit others by

becoming a warning to them. The latter class are generally kings and potentates; meaner persons, happily for

themselves, have not the same power of doing injustice. Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are supposed by

Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that there is anything to prevent a great man from being

a good one, as is shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But to Rhadamanthus

the souls are only known as good or bad; they are stripped of their dignities and preferments; he despatches

the bad to Tartarus, labelled either as curable or incurable, and looks with love and admiration on the soul of

some just one, whom he sends to the islands of the blest. Similar is the practice of Aeacus; and Minos

My wish for myself and my fellowmen is, that we may present our souls undefiled to the judge in that day;

my desire in life is to be able to meet death. And I exhort you, and retort upon you the reproach which you

cast upon me,that you will stand before the judge, gaping, and with dizzy brain, and any one may box you

Perhaps you think that this is an old wives' fable. But you, who are the three wisest men in Hellas, have

nothing better to say, and no one will ever show that to do is better than to suffer evil. A man should study to

be, and not merely to seem. If he is bad, he should become good, and avoid all flattery, whether of the many

Follow me, then; and if you are looked down upon, that will do you no harm. And when we have practised

virtue, we will betake ourselves to politics, but not until we are delivered from the shameful state of

ignorance and uncertainty in which we are at present. Let us follow in the way of virtue and justice, and not

We will now consider in order some of the principal points of the dialogue. Having regard (1) to the age of

Plato and the ironical character of his writings, we may compare him with himself, and with other great

teachers, and we may note in passing the objections of his critics. And then (2) casting one eye upon him, we

may cast another upon ourselves, and endeavour to draw out the great lessons which he teaches for all time,

(1) In the Gorgias, as in nearly all the other dialogues of Plato, we are made aware that formal logic has as yet

no existence. The old difficulty of framing a definition recurs. The illusive analogy of the arts and the virtues

also continues. The ambiguity of several words, such as nature, custom, the honourable, the good, is not

cleared up. The Sophists are still floundering about the distinction of the real and seeming. Figures of speech

are made the basis of arguments. The possibility of conceiving a universal art or science, which admits of

application to a particular subjectmatter, is a difficulty which remains unsolved, and has not altogether

ceased to haunt the world at the present day (compare Charmides). The defect of clearness is also apparent in

Socrates himself, unless we suppose him to be practising on the simplicity of his opponent, or rather perhaps

trying an experiment in dialectics. Nothing can be more fallacious than the contradiction which he pretends to

have discovered in the answers of Gorgias (see above). The advantages which he gains over Polus are also

due to a false antithesis of pleasure and good, and to an erroneous assertion that an agent and a patient may be

described by similar predicates;a mistake which Aristotle partly shares and partly corrects in the

Nicomachean Ethics. Traces of a 'robust sophistry' are likewise discernible in his argument with Callicles.

(2) Although Socrates professes to be convinced by reason only, yet the argument is often a sort of dialectical

fiction, by which he conducts himself and others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may sometimes

wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists, or pointed out to them the rocks which lay

concealed under the ambiguous terms good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to examine his

arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to criticise this ideal from a merely utilitarian point of

view. If we say that the ideal is generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no means agree

in thinking that the criminal is happier when punished than when unpunished, any more than they would

agree to the stoical paradox that a man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted that the world is

against him. Neither does he mean to say that Archelaus is tormented by the stings of conscience; or that the

sensations of the impaled criminal are more agreeable than those of the tyrant drowned in luxurious

enjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the Protagoras, of virtue as a calculation of pleasure, an opinion

which he afterwards repudiates in the Phaedo. What then is his meaning? His meaning we shall be able to

illustrate best by parallel notions, which, whether justifiable by logic or not, have always existed among

mankind. We must remind the reader that Socrates himself implies that he will be understood or appreciated

He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of happiness. When a martyr dies in a

good cause, when a soldier falls in battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that

their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction. Still we regard them as happy, and

we would a thousand times rather have their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe

that they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have crowns of glory in another world, when

their enemies and persecutors will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what

is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we regard them as happy on this ground

only, much as Socrates' friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of

another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.' We are not concerned to justify this idealism

by the standard of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of such a sentiment in the

The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain that in some sense or other truth

and right are alone to be sought, and that all other goods are only desirable as means towards these. He is

thought to have erred in 'considering the agent only, and making no reference to the happiness of others, as

affected by him.' But the happiness of others or of mankind, if regarded as an end, is really quite as ideal and

almost as paradoxical to the common understanding as Plato's conception of happiness. For the greatest

happiness of the greatest number may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which will procure the

greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of utility, like those of duty and right, may be pushed to

unpleasant consequences. Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely selfregarding, considering that

Socrates expressly mentions the duty of imparting the truth when discovered to others. Nor must we forget

that the side of ethics which regards others is by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato and Aristotle,

as well as in the Stoics, the social principle, though taking another form, is really far more prominent than in

The idealizing of suffering is one of the conceptions which have exercised the greatest influence on mankind.

Into the theological import of this, or into the consideration of the errors to which the idea may have given

rise, we need not now enter. All will agree that the ideal of the Divine Sufferer, whose words the world would

not receive, the man of sorrows of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke, has sunk deep into the heart of the

human race. It is a similar picture of suffering goodness which Plato desires to pourtray, not without an

allusion to the fate of his master Socrates. He is convinced that, somehow or other, such an one must be

happy in life or after death. In the Republic, he endeavours to show that his happiness would be assured here

in a wellordered state. But in the actual condition of human things the wise and good are weak and

miserable; such an one is like a man fallen among wild beasts, exposed to every sort of wrong and obloquy.

Plato, like other philosophers, is thus led on to the conclusion, that if 'the ways of God' to man are to be

'justified,' the hopes of another life must be included. If the question could have been put to him, whether a

man dying in torments was happy still, even if, as he suggests in the Apology, 'death be only a long sleep,' we

can hardly tell what would have been his answer. There have been a few, who, quite independently of

rewards and punishments or of posthumous reputation, or any other influence of public opinion, have been

willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of others. It is difficult to say how far in such cases an unconscious

hope of a future life, or a general faith in the victory of good in the world, may have supported the sufferers.

But this extreme idealism is not in accordance with the spirit of Plato. He supposes a day of retribution, in

which the good are to be rewarded and the wicked punished. Though, as he says in the Phaedo, no man of

sense will maintain that the details of the stories about another world are true, he will insist that something of

the kind is true, and will frame his life with a view to this unknown future. Even in the Republic he

introduces a future life as an afterthought, when the superior happiness of the just has been established on

what is thought to be an immutable foundation. At the same time he makes a point of determining his main

(3) Plato's theory of punishment is partly vindictive, partly corrective. In the Gorgias, as well as in the Phaedo

and Republic, a few great criminals, chiefly tyrants, are reserved as examples. But most men have never had

the opportunity of attaining this preeminence of evil. They are not incurable, and their punishment is

intended for their improvement. They are to suffer because they have sinned; like sick men, they must go to

the physician and be healed. On this representation of Plato's the criticism has been made, that the analogy of

disease and injustice is partial only, and that suffering, instead of improving men, may have just the opposite

Like the general analogy of the arts and the virtues, the analogy of disease and injustice, or of medicine and

justice, is certainly imperfect. But ideas must be given through something; the nature of the mind which is

unseen can only be represented under figures derived from visible objects. If these figures are suggestive of

some new aspect under which the mind may be considered, we cannot find fault with them for not exactly

coinciding with the ideas represented. They partake of the imperfect nature of language, and must not be

construed in too strict a manner. That Plato sometimes reasons from them as if they were not figures but

Nor does he distinguish between the suffering which improves and the suffering which only punishes and

deters. He applies to the sphere of ethics a conception of punishment which is really derived from criminal

law. He does not see that such punishment is only negative, and supplies no principle of moral growth or

development. He is not far off the higher notion of an education of man to be begun in this world, and to be

continued in other stages of existence, which is further developed in the Republic. And Christian thinkers,

who have ventured out of the beaten track in their meditations on the 'last things,' have found a ray of light in

his writings. But he has not explained how or in what way punishment is to contribute to the improvement of

mankind. He has not followed out the principle which he affirms in the Republic, that 'God is the author of

evil only with a view to good,' and that 'they were the better for being punished.' Still his doctrine of a future

state of rewards and punishments may be compared favourably with that perversion of Christian doctrine

which makes the everlasting punishment of human beings depend on a brief moment of time, or even on the

accident of an accident. And he has escaped the difficulty which has often beset divines, respecting the future

destiny of the meaner sort of men (Thersites and the like), who are neither very good nor very bad, by not

We do Plato violence in pressing his figures of speech or chains of argument; and not less so in asking

questions which were beyond the horizon of his vision, or did not come within the scope of his design. The

main purpose of the Gorgias is not to answer questions about a future world, but to place in antagonism the

true and false life, and to contrast the judgments and opinions of men with judgment according to the truth.

Plato may be accused of representing a superhuman or transcendental virtue in the description of the just man

in the Gorgias, or in the companion portrait of the philosopher in the Theaetetus; and at the same time may be

thought to be condemning a state of the world which always has existed and always will exist among men.

But such ideals act powerfully on the imagination of mankind. And such condemnations are not mere

paradoxes of philosophers, but the natural rebellion of the higher sense of right in man against the ordinary

conditions of human life. The greatest statesmen have fallen very far short of the political ideal, and are

Subordinate to the main purpose of the dialogue are some other questions, which may be briefly

a. The antithesis of good and pleasure, which as in other dialogues is supposed to consist in the permanent

nature of the one compared with the transient and relative nature of the other. Good and pleasure, knowledge

and sense, truth and opinion, essence and generation, virtue and pleasure, the real and the apparent, the

infinite and finite, harmony or beauty and discord, dialectic and rhetoric or poetry, are so many pairs of

opposites, which in Plato easily pass into one another, and are seldom kept perfectly distinct. And we must

not forget that Plato's conception of pleasure is the Heracleitean flux transferred to the sphere of human

conduct. There is some degree of unfairness in opposing the principle of good, which is objective, to the

principle of pleasure, which is subjective. For the assertion of the permanence of good is only based on the

assumption of its objective character. Had Plato fixed his mind, not on the ideal nature of good, but on the

subjective consciousness of happiness, that would have been found to be as transient and precarious as

b. The arts or sciences, when pursued without any view to truth, or the improvement of human life, are called

flatteries. They are all alike dependent upon the opinion of mankind, from which they are derived. To Plato

the whole world appears to be sunk in error, based on selfinterest. To this is opposed the one wise man

hardly professing to have found truth, yet strong in the conviction that a virtuous life is the only good,

whether regarded with reference to this world or to another. Statesmen, Sophists, rhetoricians, poets, are alike

brought up for judgment. They are the parodies of wise men, and their arts are the parodies of true arts and

sciences. All that they call science is merely the result of that study of the tempers of the Great Beast, which

c. Various other points of contact naturally suggest themselves between the Gorgias and other dialogues,

especially the Republic, the Philebus, and the Protagoras. There are closer resemblances both of spirit and

language in the Republic than in any other dialogue, the verbal similarity tending to show that they were

written at the same period of Plato's life. For the Republic supplies that education and training of which the

Gorgias suggests the necessity. The theory of the many weak combining against the few strong in the

formation of society (which is indeed a partial truth), is similar in both of them, and is expressed in nearly the

same language. The sufferings and fate of the just man, the powerlessness of evil, and the reversal of the

situation in another life, are also points of similarity. The poets, like the rhetoricians, are condemned because

they aim at pleasure only, as in the Republic they are expelled the State, because they are imitators, and

minister to the weaker side of human nature. That poetry is akin to rhetoric may be compared with the

analogous notion, which occurs in the Protagoras, that the ancient poets were the Sophists of their day. In

some other respects the Protagoras rather offers a contrast than a parallel. The character of Protagoras may be

compared with that of Gorgias, but the conception of happiness is different in the two dialogues; being

described in the former, according to the old Socratic notion, as deferred or accumulated pleasure, while in

This opposition is carried out from a speculative point of view in the Philebus. There neither pleasure nor

wisdom are allowed to be the chief good, but pleasure and good are not so completely opposed as in the

Gorgias. For innocent pleasures, and such as have no antecedent pains, are allowed to rank in the class of

goods. The allusion to Gorgias' definition of rhetoric (Philebus; compare Gorg.), as the art of persuasion, of

all arts the best, for to it all things submit, not by compulsion, but of their own free willmarks a close and

perhaps designed connection between the two dialogues. In both the ideas of measure, order, harmony, are

In general spirit and character, that is, in irony and antagonism to public opinion, the Gorgias most nearly

resembles the Apology, Crito, and portions of the Republic, and like the Philebus, though from another point

of view, may be thought to stand in the same relation to Plato's theory of morals which the Theaetetus bears

d. A few minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant irony in the reason which is

assigned for the pilot's modest charge; and in the proposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of

selfcondemnation; and in the mighty power of geometrical equality in both worlds. (2) The reference of the

mythus to the previous discussion should not be overlooked: the fate reserved for incurable criminals such as

Archelaus; the retaliation of the box on the ears; the nakedness of the souls and of the judges who are stript of

the clothes or disguises which rhetoric and public opinion have hitherto provided for them (compare Swift's

notion that the universe is a suit of clothes, Tale of a Tub). The fiction seems to have involved Plato in the

necessity of supposing that the soul retained a sort of corporeal likeness after death. (3) The appeal of the

authority of Homer, who says that Odysseus saw Minos in his court 'holding a golden sceptre,' which gives

It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing 'both sides of the game,' and that in criticising the

characters of Gorgias and Polus, we are not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only

attempting to analyze the 'dramatis personae' as they were conceived by him. Neither is it necessary to

enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato is a dramatic writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed

to be those which he puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who appears to have the best of the

argument; or to repeat the observation that he is a poet as well as a philosopher; or to remark that he is not to

be tried by a modern standard, but interpreted with reference to his place in the history of thought and the

It has been said that the most characteristic feature of the Gorgias is the assertion of the right of dissent, or

private judgment. But this mode of stating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of Plato and of

ancient philosophy generally. For Plato is not asserting any abstract right or duty of toleration, or advantage

to be derived from freedom of thought; indeed, in some other parts of his writings (e.g. Laws), he has fairly

laid himself open to the charge of intolerance. No speculations had as yet arisen respecting the 'liberty of

prophesying;' and Plato is not affirming any abstract right of this nature: but he is asserting the duty and right

of the one wise and true man to dissent from the folly and falsehood of the many. At the same time he

acknowledges the natural result, which he hardly seeks to avert, that he who speaks the truth to a multitude,

The irony of Plato sometimes veils from us the height of idealism to which he soars. When declaring truths

which the many will not receive, he puts on an armour which cannot be pierced by them. The weapons of

ridicule are taken out of their hands and the laugh is turned against themselves. The disguises which Socrates

assumes are like the parables of the New Testament, or the oracles of the Delphian God; they half conceal,

half reveal, his meaning. The more he is in earnest, the more ironical he becomes; and he is never more in

earnest or more ironical than in the Gorgias. He hardly troubles himself to answer seriously the objections of

Gorgias and Polus, and therefore he sometimes appears to be careless of the ordinary requirements of logic.

Yet in the highest sense he is always logical and consistent with himself. The form of the argument may be

paradoxical; the substance is an appeal to the higher reason. He is uttering truths before they can be

understood, as in all ages the words of philosophers, when they are first uttered, have found the world

unprepared for them. A further misunderstanding arises out of the wildness of his humour; he is supposed not

only by Callicles, but by the rest of mankind, to be jesting when he is profoundly serious. At length he makes

even Polus in earnest. Finally, he drops the argument, and heedless any longer of the forms of dialectic, he

loses himself in a sort of triumph, while at the same time he retaliates upon his adversaries. From this

confusion of jest and earnest, we may now return to the ideal truth, and draw out in a simple form the main

The words of Socrates are more abstract than the words of Christ, but they equally imply that the only real

evil is moral evil. The righteous may suffer or die, but they have their reward; and even if they had no

reward, would be happier than the wicked. The world, represented by Polus, is ready, when they are asked, to

acknowledge that injustice is dishonourable, and for their own sakes men are willing to punish the offender

(compare Republic). But they are not equally willing to acknowledge that injustice, even if successful, is

essentially evil, and has the nature of disease and death. Especially when crimes are committed on the great

scalethe crimes of tyrants, ancient or modernafter a while, seeing that they cannot be undone, and have

become a part of history, mankind are disposed to forgive them, not from any magnanimity or charity, but

because their feelings are blunted by time, and 'to forgive is convenient to them.' The tangle of good and evil

can no longer be unravelled; and although they know that the end cannot justify the means, they feel also that

good has often come out of evil. But Socrates would have us pass the same judgment on the tyrant now and

always; though he is surrounded by his satellites, and has the applauses of Europe and Asia ringing in his

ears; though he is the civilizer or liberator of half a continent, he is, and always will be, the most miserable of

men. The greatest consequences for good or for evil cannot alter a hair's breadth the morality of actions

which are right or wrong in themselves. This is the standard which Socrates holds up to us. Because politics,

and perhaps human life generally, are of a mixed nature we must not allow our principles to sink to the level

And so of private individualsto them, too, the world occasionally speaks of the consequences of their

actions:if they are lovers of pleasure, they will ruin their health; if they are false or dishonest, they will

lose their character. But Socrates would speak to them, not of what will be, but of what isof the present

consequence of lowering and degrading the soul. And all higher natures, or perhaps all men everywhere, if

they were not tempted by interest or passion, would agree with himthey would rather be the victims than

the perpetrators of an act of treachery or of tyranny. Reason tells them that death comes sooner or later to all,

and is not so great an evil as an unworthy life, or rather, if rightly regarded, not an evil at all, but to a good

man the greatest good. For in all of us there are slumbering ideals of truth and right, which may at any time

There might have been a condition of human life in which the penalty followed at once, and was proportioned

to the offence. Moral evil would then be scarcely distinguishable from physical; mankind would avoid vice as

they avoid pain or death. But nature, with a view of deepening and enlarging our characters, has for the most

part hidden from us the consequences of our actions, and we can only foresee them by an effort of reflection.

To awaken in us this habit of reflection is the business of early education, which is continued in maturer years

by observation and experience. The spoilt child is in later life said to be unfortunatehe had better have

suffered when he was young, and been saved from suffering afterwards. But is not the sovereign equally

unfortunate whose education and manner of life are always concealing from him the consequences of his own

actions, until at length they are revealed to him in some terrible downfall, which may, perhaps, have been

caused not by his own fault? Another illustration is afforded by the pauper and criminal classes, who scarcely

reflect at all, except on the means by which they can compass their immediate ends. We pity them, and make

allowances for them; but we do not consider that the same principle applies to human actions generally. Not

to have been found out in some dishonesty or folly, regarded from a moral or religious point of view, is the

greatest of misfortunes. The success of our evil doings is a proof that the gods have ceased to strive with us,

and have given us over to ourselves. There is nothing to remind us of our sins, and therefore nothing to

The 'accustomed irony' of Socrates adds a corollary to the argument: 'Would you punish your enemy, you

should allow him to escape unpunished' this is the true retaliation. (Compare the obscure verse of

Men are not in the habit of dwelling upon the dark side of their own lives: they do not easily see themselves

as others see them. They are very kind and very blind to their own faults; the rhetoric of selflove is always

pleading with them on their own behalf. Adopting a similar figure of speech, Socrates would have them use

rhetoric, not in defence but in accusation of themselves. As they are guided by feeling rather than by reason,

to their feelings the appeal must be made. They must speak to themselves; they must argue with themselves;

they must paint in eloquent words the character of their own evil deeds. To any suffering which they have

deserved, they must persuade themselves to submit. Under the figure there lurks a real thought, which,

expressed in another form, admits of an easy application to ourselves. For do not we too accuse as well as

excuse ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric of prayer and preaching, which the mind silently

employs while the struggle between the better and the worse is going on within us. And sometimes we are too

hard upon ourselves, because we want to restore the balance which selflove has overthrown or disturbed;

and then again we may hear a voice as of a parent consoling us. In religious diaries a sort of drama is often

enacted by the consciences of men 'accusing or else excusing them.' For all our life long we are talking with

ourselves:What is thought but speech? What is feeling but rhetoric? And if rhetoric is used on one side

only we shall be always in danger of being deceived. And so the words of Socrates, which at first sounded

Socrates would teach us a lesson which we are slow to learnthat good intentions, and even benevolent

actions, when they are not prompted by wisdom, are of no value. We believe something to be for our good

which we afterwards find out not to be for our good. The consequences may be inevitable, for they may

follow an invariable law, yet they may often be the very opposite of what is expected by us. When we

increase pauperism by almsgiving; when we tie up property without regard to changes of circumstances;

when we say hastily what we deliberately disapprove; when we do in a moment of passion what upon

reflection we regret; when from any want of selfcontrol we give another an advantage over uswe are

doing not what we will, but what we wish. All actions of which the consequences are not weighed and

foreseen, are of this impotent and paralytic sort; and the author of them has 'the least possible power' while

seeming to have the greatest. For he is actually bringing about the reverse of what he intended. And yet the

book of nature is open to him, in which he who runs may read if he will exercise ordinary attention; every

day offers him experiences of his own and of other men's characters, and he passes them unheeded by. The

contemplation of the consequences of actions, and the ignorance of men in regard to them, seems to have led

Socrates to his famous thesis:'Virtue is knowledge;' which is not so much an error or paradox as a half

truth, seen first in the twilight of ethical philosophy, but also the half of the truth which is especially needed

in the present age. For as the world has grown older men have been too apt to imagine a right and wrong

apart from consequences; while a few, on the other hand, have sought to resolve them wholly into their

consequences. But Socrates, or Plato for him, neither divides nor identifies them; though the time has not yet

arrived either for utilitarian or transcendental systems of moral philosophy, he recognizes the two elements

which seem to lie at the basis of morality. (Compare the following: 'Now, and for us, it is a time to Hellenize

and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraized too much and have overvalued doing. But the habits and

discipline received from Hebraism remain for our race an eternal possession. And as humanity is constituted,

one must never assign the second rank today without being ready to restore them to the first tomorrow.' Sir

The Greek in the age of Plato admitted praise to be one of the chief incentives to moral virtue, and to most

men the opinion of their fellows is a leading principle of action. Hence a certain element of seeming enters

into all things; all or almost all desire to appear better than they are, that they may win the esteem or

admiration of others. A man of ability can easily feign the language of piety or virtue; and there is an

unconscious as well as a conscious hypocrisy which, according to Socrates, is the worst of the two. Again,

there is the sophistry of classes and professions. There are the different opinions about themselves and one

another which prevail in different ranks of society. There is the bias given to the mind by the study of one

department of human knowledge to the exclusion of the rest; and stronger far the prejudice engendered by a

pecuniary or party interest in certain tenets. There is the sophistry of law, the sophistry of medicine, the

sophistry of politics, the sophistry of theology. All of these disguises wear the appearance of the truth; some

of them are very ancient, and we do not easily disengage ourselves from them; for we have inherited them,

and they have become a part of us. The sophistry of an ancient Greek sophist is nothing compared with the

sophistry of a religious order, or of a church in which during many ages falsehood has been accumulating,

and everything has been said on one side, and nothing on the other. The conventions and customs which we

observe in conversation, and the opposition of our interests when we have dealings with one another ('the

buyer saith, it is noughtit is nought,' etc.), are always obscuring our sense of truth and right. The sophistry

of human nature is far more subtle than the deceit of any one man. Few persons speak freely from their own

natures, and scarcely any one dares to think for himself: most of us imperceptibly fall into the opinions of

those around us, which we partly help to make. A man who would shake himself loose from them, requires

great force of mind; he hardly knows where to begin in the search after truth. On every side he is met by the

world, which is not an abstraction of theologians, but the most real of all things, being another name for

ourselves when regarded collectively and subjected to the influences of society.

Then comes Socrates, impressed as no other man ever was, with the unreality and untruthfulness of popular

opinion, and tells mankind that they must be and not seem. How are they to be? At any rate they must have

the spirit and desire to be. If they are ignorant, they must acknowledge their ignorance to themselves; if they

are conscious of doing evil, they must learn to do well; if they are weak, and have nothing in them which they

can call themselves, they must acquire firmness and consistency; if they are indifferent, they must begin to

take an interest in the great questions which surround them. They must try to be what they would fain appear

in the eyes of their fellowmen. A single individual cannot easily change public opinion; but he can be true

and innocent, simple and independent; he can know what he does, and what he does not know; and though

not without an effort, he can form a judgment of his own, at least in common matters. In his most secret

actions he can show the same high principle (compare Republic) which he shows when supported and

watched by public opinion. And on some fitting occasion, on some question of humanity or truth or right,

even an ordinary man, from the natural rectitude of his disposition, may be found to take up arms against a

The true statesman is he who brings order out of disorder; who first organizes and then administers the

government of his own country; and having made a nation, seeks to reconcile the national interests with those

of Europe and of mankind. He is not a mere theorist, nor yet a dealer in expedients; the whole and the parts

grow together in his mind; while the head is conceiving, the hand is executing. Although obliged to descend

to the world, he is not of the world. His thoughts are fixed not on power or riches or extension of territory, but

on an ideal state, in which all the citizens have an equal chance of health and life, and the highest education is

within the reach of all, and the moral and intellectual qualities of every individual are freely developed, and

'the idea of good' is the animating principle of the whole. Not the attainment of freedom alone, or of order

alone, but how to unite freedom with order is the problem which he has to solve.

The statesman who places before himself these lofty aims has undertaken a task which will call forth all his

powers. He must control himself before he can control others; he must know mankind before he can manage

them. He has no private likes or dislikes; he does not conceal personal enmity under the disguise of moral or

political principle: such meannesses, into which men too often fall unintentionally, are absorbed in the

consciousness of his mission, and in his love for his country and for mankind. He will sometimes ask himself

what the next generation will say of him; not because he is careful of posthumous fame, but because he

knows that the result of his life as a whole will then be more fairly judged. He will take time for the execution

of his plans; not hurrying them on when the mind of a nation is unprepared for them; but like the Ruler of the

Universe Himself, working in the appointed time, for he knows that human life, 'if not long in comparison

with eternity' (Republic), is sufficient for the fulfilment of many great purposes. He knows, too, that the work

will be still going on when he is no longer here; and he will sometimes, especially when his powers are

failing, think of that other 'city of which the pattern is in heaven' (Republic).

The false politician is the servingman of the state. In order to govern men he becomes like them; their

'minds are married in conjunction;' they 'bear themselves' like vulgar and tyrannical masters, and he is their

obedient servant. The true politician, if he would rule men, must make them like himself; he must 'educate his

party' until they cease to be a party; he must breathe into them the spirit which will hereafter give form to

their institutions. Politics with him are not a mechanism for seeming what he is not, or for carrying out the

will of the majority. Himself a representative man, he is the representative not of the lower but of the higher

elements of the nation. There is a better (as well as a worse) public opinion of which he seeks to lay hold; as

there is also a deeper current of human affairs in which he is borne up when the waves nearer the shore are

threatening him. He acknowledges that he cannot take the world by forcetwo or three moves on the

political chess board are all that he can fore seetwo or three weeks moves on the political chessboard are

all that he can foreseetwo or three weeks or months are granted to him in which he can provide against a

coming struggle. But he knows also that there are permanent principles of politics which are always tending

to the wellbeing of statesbetter administration, better education, the reconciliation of conflicting

elements, increased security against external enemies. These are not 'of today or yesterday,' but are the same

in all times, and under all forms of government. Then when the storm descends and the winds blow, though

he knows not beforehand the hour of danger, the pilot, not like Plato's captain in the Republic, halfblind and

deaf, but with penetrating eye and quick ear, is ready to take command of the ship and guide her into port.

The false politician asks not what is true, but what is the opinion of the worldnot what is right, but what is

expedient. The only measures of which he approves are the measures which will pass. He has no intention of

fighting an uphill battle; he keeps the roadway of politics. He is unwilling to incur the persecution and enmity

which political convictions would entail upon him. He begins with popularity, and in fair weather sails

gallantly along. But unpopularity soon follows him. For men expect their leaders to be better and wiser than

themselves: to be their guides in danger, their saviours in extremity; they do not really desire them to obey all

the ignorant impulses of the popular mind; and if they fail them in a crisis they are disappointed. Then, as

Socrates says, the cry of ingratitude is heard, which is most unreasonable; for the people, who have been

taught no better, have done what might be expected of them, and their statesmen have received justice at their

The true statesman is aware that he must adapt himself to times and circumstances. He must have allies if he

is to fight against the world; he must enlighten public opinion; he must accustom his followers to act

together. Although he is not the mere executor of the will of the majority, he must win over the majority to

himself. He is their leader and not their follower, but in order to lead he must also follow. He will neither

exaggerate nor undervalue the power of a statesman, neither adopting the 'laissez faire' nor the 'paternal

government' principle; but he will, whether he is dealing with children in politics, or with full grown men,

seek to do for the people what the government can do for them, and what, from imperfect education or

deficient powers of combination, they cannot do for themselves. He knows that if he does too much for them

they will do nothing; and that if he does nothing for them they will in some states of society be utterly

helpless. For the many cannot exist without the few, if the material force of a country is from below, wisdom

and experience are from above. It is not a small part of human evils which kings and governments make or

cure. The statesman is well aware that a great purpose carried out consistently during many years will at last

be executed. He is playing for a stake which may be partly determined by some accident, and therefore he

will allow largely for the unknown element of politics. But the game being one in which chance and skill are

combined, if he plays long enough he is certain of victory. He will not be always consistent, for the world is

changing; and though he depends upon the support of a party, he will remember that he is the minister of the

whole. He lives not for the present, but for the future, and he is not at all sure that he will be appreciated

either now or then. For he may have the existing order of society against him, and may not be remembered by

There are always discontented idealists in politics who, like Socrates in the Gorgias, find fault with all

statesmen past as well as present, not excepting the greatest names of history. Mankind have an uneasy

feeling that they ought to be better governed than they are. Just as the actual philosopher falls short of the one

wise man, so does the actual statesman fall short of the ideal. And so partly from vanity and egotism, but

partly also from a true sense of the faults of eminent men, a temper of dissatisfaction and criticism springs up

among those who are ready enough to acknowledge the inferiority of their own powers. No matter whether a

statesman makes high professions or none at allthey are reduced sooner or later to the same level. And

sometimes the more unscrupulous man is better esteemed than the more conscientious, because he has not

equally deceived expectations. Such sentiments may be unjust, but they are widely spread; we constantly find

them recurring in reviews and newspapers, and still oftener in private conversation.

We may further observe that the art of government, while in some respects tending to improve, has in others a

tendency to degenerate, as institutions become more popular. Governing for the people cannot easily be

combined with governing by the people: the interests of classes are too strong for the ideas of the statesman

who takes a comprehensive view of the whole. According to Socrates the true governor will find ruin or death

staring him in the face, and will only be induced to govern from the fear of being governed by a worse man

than himself (Republic). And in modern times, though the world has grown milder, and the terrible

consequences which Plato foretells no longer await an English statesman, any one who is not actuated by a

blind ambition will only undertake from a sense of duty a work in which he is most likely to fail; and even if

Socrates, who is not a politician at all, tells us that he is the only real politician of his time. Let us illustrate

the meaning of his words by applying them to the history of our own country. He would have said that not

Pitt or Fox, or Canning or Sir R. Peel, are the real politicians of their time, but Locke, Hume, Adam Smith,

Bentham, Ricardo. These during the greater part of their lives occupied an inconsiderable space in the eyes of

the public. They were private persons; nevertheless they sowed in the minds of men seeds which in the next

generation have become an irresistible power. 'Herein is that saying true, One soweth and another reapeth.'

We may imagine with Plato an ideal statesman in whom practice and speculation are perfectly harmonized;

for there is no necessary opposition between them. But experience shows that they are commonly

divorcedthe ordinary politician is the interpreter or executor of the thoughts of others, and hardly ever

brings to the birth a new political conception. One or two only in modern times, like the Italian statesman

Cavour, have created the world in which they moved. The philosopher is naturally unfitted for political life;

his great ideas are not understood by the many; he is a thousand miles away from the questions of the day.

Yet perhaps the lives of thinkers, as they are stiller and deeper, are also happier than the lives of those who

are more in the public eye. They have the promise of the future, though they are regarded as dreamers and

visionaries by their own contemporaries. And when they are no longer here, those who would have been

ashamed of them during their lives claim kindred with them, and are proud to be called by their names.

Plato expels the poets from his Republic because they are allied to sense; because they stimulate the

emotions; because they are thrice removed from the ideal truth. And in a similar spirit he declares in the

Gorgias that the stately muse of tragedy is a votary of pleasure and not of truth. In modern times we almost

ridicule the idea of poetry admitting of a moral. The poet and the prophet, or preacher, in primitive antiquity

are one and the same; but in later ages they seem to fall apart. The great art of novel writing, that peculiar

creation of our own and the last century, which, together with the sister art of review writing, threatens to

absorb all literature, has even less of seriousness in her composition. Do we not often hear the novel writer

Yet the true office of a poet or writer of fiction is not merely to give amusement, or to be the expression of

the feelings of mankind, good or bad, or even to increase our knowledge of human nature. There have been

poets in modern times, such as Goethe or Wordsworth, who have not forgotten their high vocation of

teachers; and the two greatest of the Greek dramatists owe their sublimity to their ethical character. The

noblest truths, sung of in the purest and sweetest language, are still the proper material of poetry. The poet

clothes them with beauty, and has a power of making them enter into the hearts and memories of men. He has

not only to speak of themes above the level of ordinary life, but to speak of them in a deeper and tenderer

way than they are ordinarily felt, so as to awaken the feeling of them in others. The old he makes young

again; the familiar principle he invests with a new dignity; he finds a noble expression for the common

places of morality and politics. He uses the things of sense so as to indicate what is beyond; he raises us

through earth to heaven. He expresses what the better part of us would fain say, and the halfconscious

feeling is strengthened by the expression. He is his own critic, for the spirit of poetry and of criticism are not

divided in him. His mission is not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their own nature,

and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True poetry is the remembrance of youth, of

love, the embodiment in words of the happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of

the greatest deeds of the past. The poet of the future may return to his greater calling of the prophet or

teacher; indeed, we hardly know what may not be effected for the human race by a better use of the poetical

and imaginative faculty. The reconciliation of poetry, as of religion, with truth, may still be possible. Neither

is the element of pleasure to be excluded. For when we substitute a higher pleasure for a lower we raise men

in the scale of existence. Might not the novelist, too, make an ideal, or rather many ideals of social life, better

than a thousand sermons? Plato, like the Puritans, is too much afraid of poetic and artistic influences. But he

is not without a true sense of the noble purposes to which art may be applied (Republic).

Modern poetry is often a sort of plaything, or, in Plato's language, a flattery, a sophistry, or sham, in which,

without any serious purpose, the poet lends wings to his fancy and exhibits his gifts of language and metre.

Such an one seeks to gratify the taste of his readers; he has the 'savoir faire,' or trick of writing, but he has not

the higher spirit of poetry. He has no conception that true art should bring order out of disorder; that it should

make provision for the soul's highest interest; that it should be pursued only with a view to 'the improvement

of the citizens.' He ministers to the weaker side of human nature (Republic); he idealizes the sensual; he sings

the strain of love in the latest fashion; instead of raising men above themselves he brings them back to the

'tyranny of the many masters,' from which all his life long a good man has been praying to be delivered. And

often, forgetful of measure and order, he will express not that which is truest, but that which is strongest.

Instead of a great and noblyexecuted subject, perfect in every part, some fancy of a heated brain is worked

out with the strangest incongruity. He is not the master of his words, but his wordsperhaps borrowed from

anotherthe faded reflection of some French or German or Italian writer, have the better of him. Though we

are not going to banish the poets, how can we suppose that such utterances have any healing or lifegiving

'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:' Art then must be true, and politics must be true, and the life

of man must be true and not a seeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder, truth

out of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest improvement of man. And so, having

considered in what way 'we can best spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God.' Plato does not

say that God will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but he indirectly implies that the evils of this

life will be corrected in another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at present, Plato here,

as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory or place of education for mankind in general, and for a

very few a Tartarus or hell. The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the revelation, but rather, like all

similar descriptions, whether in the Bible or Plato, the veil of another life. For no visible thing can reveal the

invisible. Of this Plato, unlike some commentators on Scripture, is fully aware. Neither will he dogmatize

about the manner in which we are 'born again' (Republic). Only he is prepared to maintain the ultimate

triumph of truth and right, and declares that no one, not even the wisest of the Greeks, can affirm any other

There is a further paradox of ethics, in which pleasure and pain are held to be indifferent, and virtue at the

time of action and without regard to consequences is happiness. From this elevation or exaggeration of

feeling Plato seems to shrink: he leaves it to the Stoics in a later generation to maintain that when impaled or

on the rack the philosopher may be happy (compare Republic). It is observable that in the Republic he raises

this question, but it is not really discussed; the veil of the ideal state, the shadow of another life, are allowed

to descend upon it and it passes out of sight. The martyr or sufferer in the cause of right or truth is often

supposed to die in raptures, having his eye fixed on a city which is in heaven. But if there were no future,

might he not still be happy in the performance of an action which was attended only by a painful death? He

himself may be ready to thank God that he was thought worthy to do Him the least service, without looking

for a reward; the joys of another life may not have been present to his mind at all. Do we suppose that the

mediaeval saint, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Catharine of Sienna, or the Catholic priest who lately devoted

himself to death by a lingering disease that he might solace and help others, was thinking of the 'sweets' of

heaven? No; the work was already heaven to him and enough. Much less will the dying patriot be dreaming

of the praises of man or of an immortality of fame: the sense of duty, of right, and trust in God will be

sufficient, and as far as the mind can reach, in that hour. If he were certain that there were no life to come, he

would not have wished to speak or act otherwise than he did in the cause of truth or of humanity. Neither, on

the other hand, will he suppose that God has forsaken him or that the future is to be a mere blank to him. The

greatest act of faith, the only faith which cannot pass away, is his who has not known, but yet has believed. A

very few among the sons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances, past, present, or to

come. He who has attained to such a temper of mind has already present with him eternal life; he needs no

arguments to convince him of immortality; he has in him already a principle stronger than death. He who

serves man without the thought of reward is deemed to be a more faithful servant than he who works for hire.

May not the service of God, which is the more disinterested, be in like manner the higher? And although only

a very few in the course of the world's history Christ himself being one of themhave attained to such a

noble conception of God and of the human soul, yet the ideal of them may be present to us, and the

remembrance of them be an example to us, and their lives may shed a light on many dark places both of

The myths of Plato are a phenomenon unique in literature. There are four longer ones: these occur in the

Phaedrus, Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic. That in the Republic is the most elaborate and finished of them.

Three of these greater myths, namely those contained in the Phaedo, the Gorgias and the Republic, relate to

the destiny of human souls in a future life. The magnificent myth in the Phaedrus treats of the immortality, or

rather the eternity of the soul, in which is included a former as well as a future state of existence. To these

may be added, (1) the myth, or rather fable, occurring in the Statesman, in which the life of innocence is

contrasted with the ordinary life of man and the consciousness of evil: (2) the legend of the Island of Atlantis,

an imaginary history, which is a fragment only, commenced in the Timaeus and continued in the Critias: (3)

the much less artistic fiction of the foundation of the Cretan colony which is introduced in the preface to the

Laws, but soon falls into the background: (4) the beautiful but rather artificial tale of Prometheus and

Epimetheus narrated in his rhetorical manner by Protagoras in the dialogue called after him: (5) the speech at

the beginning of the Phaedrus, which is a parody of the orator Lysias; the rival speech of Socrates and the

recantation of it. To these may be added (6) the tale of the grasshoppers, and (7) the tale of Thamus and of

Theuth, both in the Phaedrus: (8) the parable of the Cave (Republic), in which the previous argument is

recapitulated, and the nature and degrees of knowledge having been previously set forth in the abstract are

represented in a picture: (9) the fiction of the earthborn men (Republic; compare Laws), in which by the

adaptation of an old tradition Plato makes a new beginning for his society: (10) the myth of Aristophanes

respecting the division of the sexes, Sym.: (11) the parable of the noble captain, the pilot, and the mutinous

sailors (Republic), in which is represented the relation of the better part of the world, and of the philosopher,

to the mob of politicians: (12) the ironical tale of the pilot who plies between Athens and Aegina charging

only a small payment for saving men from death, the reason being that he is uncertain whether to live or die

is better for them (Gor.): (13) the treatment of freemen and citizens by physicians and of slaves by their

apprentices,a somewhat laboured figure of speech intended to illustrate the two different ways in which the

laws speak to men (Laws). There also occur in Plato continuous images; some of them extend over several

pages, appearing and reappearing at intervals: such as the bees stinging and stingless (paupers and thieves) in

the Eighth Book of the Republic, who are generated in the transition from timocracy to oligarchy: the sun,

which is to the visible world what the idea of good is to the intellectual, in the Sixth Book of the Republic:

the composite animal, having the form of a man, but containing under a human skin a lion and a

manyheaded monster (Republic): the great beast, i.e. the populace: and the wild beast within us, meaning

the passions which are always liable to break out: the animated comparisons of the degradation of philosophy

by the arts to the dishonoured maiden, and of the tyrant to the parricide, who 'beats his father, having first

taken away his arms': the dog, who is your only philosopher: the grotesque and rather paltry image of the

argument wandering about without a head (Laws), which is repeated, not improved, from the Gorgias: the

argument personified as veiling her face (Republic), as engaged in a chase, as breaking upon us in a first,

second and third wave:on these figures of speech the changes are rung many times over. It is observable

that nearly all these parables or continuous images are found in the Republic; that which occurs in the

Theaetetus, of the midwifery of Socrates, is perhaps the only exception. To make the list complete, the

mathematical figure of the number of the state (Republic), or the numerical interval which separates king

The myth in the Gorgias is one of those descriptions of another life which, like the Sixth Aeneid of Virgil,

appear to contain reminiscences of the mysteries. It is a vision of the rewards and punishments which await

good and bad men after death. It supposes the body to continue and to be in another world what it has become

in this. It includes a Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno, like the sister myths of the Phaedo and the Republic.

The Inferno is reserved for great criminals only. The argument of the dialogue is frequently referred to, and

the meaning breaks through so as rather to destroy the liveliness and consistency of the picture. The structure

of the fiction is very slight, the chief point or moral being that in the judgments of another world there is no

possibility of concealment: Zeus has taken from men the power of foreseeing death, and brings together the

souls both of them and their judges naked and undisguised at the judgmentseat. Both are exposed to view,

stripped of the veils and clothes which might prevent them from seeing into or being seen by one another.

The myth of the Phaedo is of the same type, but it is more cosmological, and also more poetical. The

beautiful and ingenious fancy occurs to Plato that the upper atmosphere is an earth and heaven in one, a

glorified earth, fairer and purer than that in which we dwell. As the fishes live in the ocean, mankind are

living in a lower sphere, out of which they put their heads for a moment or two and behold a world beyond.

The earth which we inhabit is a sediment of the coarser particles which drop from the world above, and is to

that heavenly earth what the desert and the shores of the ocean are to us. A part of the myth consists of

description of the interior of the earth, which gives the opportunity of introducing several mythological

names and of providing places of torment for the wicked. There is no clear distinction of soul and body; the

spirits beneath the earth are spoken of as souls only, yet they retain a sort of shadowy form when they cry for

mercy on the shores of the lake; and the philosopher alone is said to have got rid of the body. All the three

myths in Plato which relate to the world below have a place for repentant sinners, as well as other homes or

places for the very good and very bad. It is a natural reflection which is made by Plato elsewhere, that the two

extremes of human character are rarely met with, and that the generality of mankind are between them. Hence

a place must be found for them. In the myth of the Phaedo they are carried down the river Acheron to the

Acherusian lake, where they dwell, and are purified of their evil deeds, and receive the rewards of their good.

There are also incurable sinners, who are cast into Tartarus, there to remain as the penalty of atrocious

crimes; these suffer everlastingly. And there is another class of hardlycurable sinners who are allowed from

time to time to approach the shores of the Acherusian lake, where they cry to their victims for mercy; which

Neither this, nor any of the three greater myths of Plato, nor perhaps any allegory or parable relating to the

unseen world, is consistent with itself. The language of philosophy mingles with that of mythology; abstract

ideas are transformed into persons, figures of speech into realities. These myths may be compared with the

Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan, in which discussions of theology are mixed up with the incidents of travel, and

mythological personages are associated with human beings: they are also garnished with names and phrases

The myth of the Republic is more subtle and also more consistent than either of the two others. It has a

greater verisimilitude than they have, and is full of touches which recall the experiences of human life. It will

be noticed by an attentive reader that the twelve days during which Er lay in a trance after he was slain

coincide with the time passed by the spirits in their pilgrimage. It is a curious observation, not often made,

that good men who have lived in a wellgoverned city (shall we say in a religious and respectable society?)

are more likely to make mistakes in their choice of life than those who have had more experience of the

world and of evil. It is a more familiar remark that we constantly blame others when we have only ourselves

to blame; and the philosopher must acknowledge, however reluctantly, that there is an element of chance in

human life with which it is sometimes impossible for man to cope. That men drink more of the waters of

forgetfulness than is good for them is a poetical description of a familiar truth. We have many of us known

men who, like Odysseus, have wearied of ambition and have only desired rest. We should like to know what

became of the infants 'dying almost as soon as they were born,' but Plato only raises, without satisfying, our

curiosity. The two companies of souls, ascending and descending at either chasm of heaven and earth, and

conversing when they come out into the meadow, the majestic figures of the judges sitting in heaven, the

voice heard by Ardiaeus, are features of the great allegory which have an indescribable grandeur and power.

The remark already made respecting the inconsistency of the two other myths must be extended also to this: it

is at once an orrery, or model of the heavens, and a picture of the Day of Judgment.

The three myths are unlike anything else in Plato. There is an Oriental, or rather an Egyptian element in them,

and they have an affinity to the mysteries and to the Orphic modes of worship. To a certain extent they are

unGreek; at any rate there is hardly anything like them in other Greek writings which have a serious

purpose; in spirit they are mediaeval. They are akin to what may be termed the underground religion in all

ages and countries. They are presented in the most lively and graphic manner, but they are never insisted on

as true; it is only affirmed that nothing better can be said about a future life. Plato seems to make use of them

when he has reached the limits of human knowledge; or, to borrow an expression of his own, when he is

standing on the outside of the intellectual world. They are very simple in style; a few touches bring the

picture home to the mind, and make it present to us. They have also a kind of authority gained by the

employment of sacred and familiar names, just as mere fragments of the words of Scripture, put together in

any form and applied to any subject, have a power of their own. They are a substitute for poetry and

mythology; and they are also a reform of mythology. The moral of them may be summed up in a word or

two: After death the Judgment; and 'there is some better thing remaining for the good than for the evil.'

All literature gathers into itself many elements of the past: for example, the tale of the earthborn men in the

Republic appears at first sight to be an extravagant fancy, but it is restored to propriety when we remember

that it is based on a legendary belief. The art of making stories of ghosts and apparitions credible is said to

consist in the manner of telling them. The effect is gained by many literary and conversational devices, such

as the previous raising of curiosity, the mention of little circumstances, simplicity, picturesqueness, the

naturalness of the occasion, and the like. This art is possessed by Plato in a degree which has never been

The myth in the Phaedrus is even greater than the myths which have been already described, but is of a

different character. It treats of a former rather than of a future life. It represents the conflict of reason aided by

passion or righteous indignation on the one hand, and of the animal lusts and instincts on the other. The soul

of man has followed the company of some god, and seen truth in the form of the universal before it was born

in this world. Our present life is the result of the struggle which was then carried on. This world is relative to

a former world, as it is often projected into a future. We ask the question, Where were men before birth? As

we likewise enquire, What will become of them after death? The first question is unfamiliar to us, and

therefore seems to be unnatural; but if we survey the whole human race, it has been as influential and as

widely spread as the other. In the Phaedrus it is really a figure of speech in which the 'spiritual combat' of this

life is represented. The majesty and power of the whole passageespecially of what may be called the theme

or proem (beginning 'The mind through all her being is immortal')can only be rendered very inadequately

The myth in the Statesman relates to a former cycle of existence, in which men were born of the earth, and by

the reversal of the earth's motion had their lives reversed and were restored to youth and beauty: the dead

came to life, the old grew middleaged, and the middleaged young; the youth became a child, the child an

infant, the infant vanished into the earth. The connection between the reversal of the earth's motion and the

reversal of human life is of course verbal only, yet Plato, like theologians in other ages, argues from the

consistency of the tale to its truth. The new order of the world was immediately under the government of

God; it was a state of innocence in which men had neither wants nor cares, in which the earth brought forth

all things spontaneously, and God was to man what man now is to the animals. There were no great estates,

or families, or private possessions, nor any traditions of the past, because men were all born out of the earth.

This is what Plato calls the 'reign of Cronos;' and in like manner he connects the reversal of the earth's motion

The question is then asked, under which of these two cycles of existence was man the happier,under that of

Cronos, which was a state of innocence, or that of Zeus, which is our ordinary life? For a while Plato

balances the two sides of the serious controversy, which he has suggested in a figure. The answer depends on

another question: What use did the children of Cronos make of their time? They had boundless leisure and

the faculty of discoursing, not only with one another, but with the animals. Did they employ these advantages

with a view to philosophy, gathering from every nature some addition to their store of knowledge? or, Did

they pass their time in eating and drinking and telling stories to one another and to the beasts?in either case

there would be no difficulty in answering. But then, as Plato rather mischievously adds, 'Nobody knows what

To the first there succeeds a second epoch. After another natural convulsion, in which the order of the world

and of human life is once more reversed, God withdraws his guiding hand, and man is left to the government

of himself. The world begins again, and arts and laws are slowly and painfully invented. A secular age

succeeds to a theocratical. In this fanciful tale Plato has dropped, or almost dropped, the garb of mythology.

He suggests several curious and important thoughts, such as the possibility of a state of innocence, the

existence of a world without traditions, and the difference between human and divine government. He has

also carried a step further his speculations concerning the abolition of the family and of property, which he

supposes to have no place among the children of Cronos any more than in the ideal state.

It is characteristic of Plato and of his age to pass from the abstract to the concrete, from poetry to reality.

Language is the expression of the seen, and also of the unseen, and moves in a region between them. A great

writer knows how to strike both these chords, sometimes remaining within the sphere of the visible, and then

again comprehending a wider range and soaring to the abstract and universal. Even in the same sentence he

may employ both modes of speech not improperly or inharmoniously. It is useless to criticise the broken

metaphors of Plato, if the effect of the whole is to create a picture not such as can be painted on canvas, but

which is full of life and meaning to the reader. A poem may be contained in a word or two, which may call up

not one but many latent images; or half reveal to us by a sudden flash the thoughts of many hearts. Often the

rapid transition from one image to another is pleasing to us: on the other hand, any single figure of speech if

too often repeated, or worked out too much at length, becomes prosy and monotonous. In theology and

philosophy we necessarily include both 'the moral law within and the starry heaven above,' and pass from one

to the other (compare for examples Psalms xviii. and xix.). Whether such a use of language is puerile or noble

depends upon the genius of the writer or speaker, and the familiarity of the associations employed.

In the myths and parables of Plato the ease and grace of conversation is not forgotten: they are spoken, not

written words, stories which are told to a living audience, and so well told that we are more than

halfinclined to believe them (compare Phaedrus). As in conversation too, the striking image or figure of

speech is not forgotten, but is quickly caught up, and alluded to again and again; as it would still be in our

own day in a genial and sympathetic society. The descriptions of Plato have a greater life and reality than is

to be found in any modern writing. This is due to their homeliness and simplicity. Plato can do with words

just as he pleases; to him they are indeed 'more plastic than wax' (Republic). We are in the habit of opposing

speech and writing, poetry and prose. But he has discovered a use of language in which they are united;

which gives a fitting expression to the highest truths; and in which the trifles of courtesy and the familiarities

CALLICLES: The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but not for a feast.

CALLICLES: Yes, and a delightful feast; for Gorgias has just been exhibiting to us many fine things.

SOCRATES: It is not my fault, Callicles; our friend Chaerephon is to blame; for he would keep us loitering

CHAEREPHON: Never mind, Socrates; the misfortune of which I have been the cause I will also repair; for

Gorgias is a friend of mine, and I will make him give the exhibition again either now, or, if you prefer, at

CALLICLES: Come into my house, then; for Gorgias is staying with me, and he shall exhibit to you.

SOCRATES: Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for I want to hear from him what is the

nature of his art, and what it is which he professes and teaches; he may, as you (Chaerephon) suggest, defer

CALLICLES: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates; and indeed to answer questions is a part of his

exhibition, for he was saying only just now, that any one in my house might put any question to him, and that

SOCRATES: I mean such a question as would elicit from him, if he had been a maker of shoes, the answer

CHAEREPHON: I understand, and will ask him: Tell me, Gorgias, is our friend Callicles right in saying

GORGIAS: Quite right, Chaerephon: I was saying as much only just now; and I may add, that many years

POLUS: Yes, indeed, and if you like, Chaerephon, you may make trial of me too, for I think that Gorgias,

CHAEREPHON: My question is this: If Gorgias had the skill of his brother Herodicus, what ought we to

CHAEREPHON: And if he had the skill of Aristophon the son of Aglaophon, or of his brother Polygnotus,

CHAEREPHON: But now what shall we call himwhat is the art in which he is skilled.

POLUS: O Chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are experimental, and have their origin

in experience, for experience makes the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according

to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the

best arts. And our friend Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is a proficient is the noblest.

SOCRATES: Polus has been taught how to make a capital speech, Gorgias; but he is not fulfilling the

SOCRATES: I mean that he has not exactly answered the question which he was asked.

SOCRATES: But I would much rather ask you, if you are disposed to answer: for I see, from the few words

which Polus has uttered, that he has attended more to the art which is called rhetoric than to dialectic.

SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked you what was the art which Gorgias knows, you

praised it as if you were answering some one who found fault with it, but you never said what the art was.

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, but that was no answer to the question: nobody asked what was the quality, but

what was the nature, of the art, and by what name we were to describe Gorgias. And I would still beg you

briefly and clearly, as you answered Chaerephon when he asked you at first, to say what this art is, and what

we ought to call Gorgias: Or rather, Gorgias, let me turn to you, and ask the same question,what are we to

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and a good one too, if you would call me that which, in Homeric language, 'I

GORGIAS: Yes, that is exactly what I profess to make them, not only at Athens, but in all places.

SOCRATES: And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias, as we are at present doing, and

reserve for another occasion the longer mode of speech which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your

GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do my best to make them as short as

SOCRATES: That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method now, and the longer one at some

GORGIAS: Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard a man use fewer words.

SOCRATES: Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you,

with what is rhetoric concerned: I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would

SOCRATES: I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about rhetoric: with what is rhetoric concerned?

SOCRATES: What sort of discourse, Gorgias?such discourse as would teach the sick under what

SOCRATES: But does not the art of medicine, which we were just now mentioning, also make men able to

SOCRATES: And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the good or evil condition of the

SOCRATES: And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts:all of them treat of discourse concerning the

SOCRATES: Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of discourse, and all the other arts treat of

GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to do with some sort of external

action, as of the hand; but there is no such action of the hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only

through the medium of discourse. And therefore I am justified in saying that rhetoric treats of discourse.

SOCRATES: I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare say I shall soon know better; please

SOCRATES: As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned with doing, and require little or

no speaking; in painting, and statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; and of such arts

SOCRATES: But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium of language, and require either

no action or very little, as, for example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of playing

draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly coextensive with action, but in most of them the verbal

element is greaterthey depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power: and I take your meaning to be

SOCRATES: And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of these arts rhetoric; although the

precise expression which you used was, that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through the

medium of discourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious might say, 'And so, Gorgias, you call

arithmetic rhetoric.' But I do not think that you really call arithmetic rhetoric any more than geometry would

SOCRATES: Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:seeing that rhetoric is one of those arts

which works mainly by the use of words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is that

quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:Suppose that a person asks me about some of the arts

which I was mentioning just now; he might say, 'Socrates, what is arithmetic?' and I should reply to him, as

you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which take effect through words. And then he would

proceed to ask: 'Words about what?' and I should reply, Words about odd and even numbers, and how many

there are of each. And if he asked again: 'What is the art of calculation?' I should say, That also is one of the

arts which is concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, 'Concerned with what?' I should say, like

the clerks in the assembly, 'as aforesaid' of arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art

of calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers, but also their numerical relations to

themselves and to one another. And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only wordshe would

ask, 'Words about what, Socrates?' and I should answer, that astronomy tells us about the motions of the stars

SOCRATES: And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about rhetoric: which you would admit

(would you not?) to be one of those arts which act always and fulfil all their ends through the medium of

SOCRATES: Words which do what? I should ask. To what class of things do the words which rhetoric uses

SOCRATES: That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for which are the greatest and best of

human things? I dare say that you have heard men singing at feasts the old drinking song, in which the

singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next, thirdly, as the writer of the song says, wealth

SOCRATES: I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the author of the song praises, that is to

say, the physician, the trainer, the moneymaker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will say: 'O

Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned with the greatest good of men and not his.' And

when I ask, Who are you? he will reply, 'I am a physician.' What do you mean? I shall say. Do you mean that

your art produces the greatest good? 'Certainly,' he will answer, 'for is not health the greatest good? What

greater good can men have, Socrates?' And after him the trainer will come and say, 'I too, Socrates, shall be

greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more good of his art than I can show of mine.' To him again I shall say,

Who are you, honest friend, and what is your business? 'I am a trainer,' he will reply, 'and my business is to

make men beautiful and strong in body.' When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the moneymaker,

and he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all. 'Consider Socrates,' he will say, 'whether Gorgias or any one

else can produce any greater good than wealth.' Well, you and I say to him, and are you a creator of wealth?

'Yes,' he replies. And who are you? 'A moneymaker.' And do you consider wealth to be the greatest good of

man? 'Of course,' will be his reply. And we shall rejoin: Yes; but our friend Gorgias contends that his art

produces a greater good than yours. And then he will be sure to go on and ask, 'What good? Let Gorgias

answer.' Now I want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question is asked of you by them and by me; What is

that which, as you say, is the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator? Answer us.

GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that which gives to men freedom in their

own persons, and to individuals the power of ruling over others in their several states.

GORGIAS: What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges in the courts, or the senators in

the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting?if you have the power of

uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer your slave, and the moneymaker

of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to

SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained what you conceive to be the art

of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I am not mistaken, that rhetoric is the artificer of persuasion, having this

and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you know any other effect of rhetoric over and

GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.

SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever was a man who entered on the

discussion of a matter from a pure love of knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of

SOCRATES: I will tell you: I am very well aware that I do not know what, according to you, is the exact

nature, or what are the topics of that persuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric; although

I have a suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am going to ask what is this power of

persuasion which is given by rhetoric, and about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask instead of

telling you? Not for your sake, but in order that the argument may proceed in such a manner as is most likely

to set forth the truth. And I would have you observe, that I am right in asking this further question: If I asked,

'What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?' and you said, 'The painter of figures,' should I not be right in asking, 'What

SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that there are other painters besides,

SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then you would have answered

SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;is rhetoric the only art which brings

persuasion, or do other arts have the same effect? I mean to sayDoes he who teaches anything persuade

SOCRATES: Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now speaking: do not arithmetic and the

SOCRATES: And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about what, we shall answer, persuasion

which teaches the quantity of odd and even; and we shall be able to show that all the other arts of which we

were just now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort, and about what.

SOCRATES: Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but that other arts do the same, as in

the case of the painter, a question has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the

GORGIAS: I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as

SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your notion; yet I would not have you

wonder if byandby I am found repeating a seemingly plain question; for I ask not in order to confute you,

but as I was saying that the argument may proceed consecutively, and that we may not get the habit of

anticipating and suspecting the meaning of one another's words; I would have you develope your own views

SOCRATES: Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as 'having learned'?

SOCRATES: And is the 'having learned' the same as 'having believed,' and are learning and belief the same

SOCRATES: And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this way: If a person were to say to

you, 'Is there, Gorgias, a false belief as well as a true?'you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there is.

SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have believed are persuaded?

SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,one which is the source of belief without

SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts of law and other assemblies about

the just and unjust, the sort of persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a persuasion which creates belief about the

SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or other assemblies about things just

and unjust, but he creates belief about them; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude

SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about rhetoric; for I do not know what my

own meaning is as yet. When the assembly meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other craftsman,

will the rhetorician be taken into counsel? Surely not. For at every election he ought to be chosen who is most

skilled; and, again, when walls have to be built or harbours or docks to be constructed, not the rhetorician but

the master workman will advise; or when generals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a

position taken, then the military will advise and not the rhetoricians: what do you say, Gorgias? Since you

profess to be a rhetorician and a maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do better than learn the nature of your art

from you. And here let me assure you that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For likely enough

some one or other of the young men present might desire to become your pupil, and in fact I see some, and a

good many too, who have this wish, but they would be too modest to question you. And therefore when you

are interrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them. 'What is the use of

coming to you, Gorgias?' they will say'about what will you teach us to advise the state?about the just

and unjust only, or about those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned?' How will you answer

GORGIAS: I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, and I will endeavour to reveal to you the whole

nature of rhetoric. You must have heard, I think, that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and the plan of

the harbour were devised in accordance with the counsels, partly of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and

SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I myself heard the speech of Pericles

GORGIAS: And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision has to be given in such matters the

SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is the nature of rhetoric, which

always appears to me, when I look at the matter in this way, to be a marvel of greatness.

GORGIAS: A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric comprehends and holds under her

sway all the inferior arts. Let me offer you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been with

my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his patients, who would not allow the physician

to give him medicine, or apply the knife or hot iron to him; and I have persuaded him to do for me what he

would not do for the physician just by the use of rhetoric. And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were

to go to any city, and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to which of them should be

elected statephysician, the physician would have no chance; but he who could speak would be chosen if he

wished; and in a contest with a man of any other profession the rhetorician more than any one would have the

power of getting himself chosen, for he can speak more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and

on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric! And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used

like any other competitive art, not against everybody,the rhetorician ought not to abuse his strength any

more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence;because he has powers which are more than a

match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to

have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes

his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or

fencingmasters should be held in detestation or banished from the city;surely not. For they taught their art

for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and evildoers, in selfdefence not in aggression, and others

have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own strength and skill. But not on this account

are the teachers bad, neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather say that those who make a bad

use of the art are to blame. And the same argument holds good of rhetoric; for the rhetorician can speak

against all men and upon any subject,in short, he can persuade the multitude better than any other man of

anything which he pleases, but he should not therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his

reputation merely because he has the power; he ought to use rhetoric fairly, as he would also use his athletic

powers. And if after having become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his instructor

surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation or banished. For he was intended by his teacher to

make a good use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who ought to be held

SOCRATES: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of disputations, and you must have

observed, I think, that they do not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either party

of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are apt to arise somebody says that another

has not spoken truly or clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving

that their opponents are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest

in the question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another until the company at last are

quite vexed at themselves for ever listening to such fellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot help

feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were saying at first

about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some animosity

against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you

are one of my sort, I should like to crossexamine you, but if not I will let you alone. And what is my sort?

you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very

willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I

hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than

of curing another. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion

about the matters of which we are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my sort, let us have the discussion

GORGIAS: I should say, Socrates, that I am quite the man whom you indicate; but, perhaps, we ought to

consider the audience, for, before you came, I had already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed the

argument may run on to a great length. And therefore I think that we should consider whether we may not be

CHAEREPHON: You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which shows their desire to listen

to you; and for myself, Heaven forbid that I should have any business on hand which would take me away

CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at many discussions, I doubt whether

I was ever so much delighted before, and therefore if you go on discoursing all day I shall be the better

GORGIAS: After all this, Socrates, I should be disgraced if I refused, especially as I have promised to

answer all comers; in accordance with the wishes of the company, then, do you begin. and ask of me any

SOCRATES: Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your words; though I dare say that you

may be right, and I may have misunderstood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will

SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the multitude on any subject, and this

SOCRATES: You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have greater powers of persuasion than the

SOCRATES: You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know he cannot be supposed to have

SOCRATES: But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the physician, he will have greater power

SOCRATES: And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of what the physician knows.

SOCRATES: Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more

persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge?is not that the inference?

SOCRATES: And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the other arts; the rhetorician need not

know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?not to have learned the other arts, but the art of

SOCRATES: Whether the rhetorician is or not inferior on this account is a question which we will hereafter

examine if the enquiry is likely to be of any service to us; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he is or

is not as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable, good and evil, as he is of medicine and the

other arts; I mean to say, does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or honourable, just or

unjust in them; or has he only a way with the ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to be

esteemed to know more about these things than some one else who knows? Or must the pupil know these

things and come to you knowing them before he can acquire the art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are

the teacher of rhetoric will not teach himit is not your business; but you will make him seem to the

multitude to know them, when he does not know them; and seem to be a good man, when he is not. Or will

you be unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows the truth of these things first? What is to be said

about all this? By heavens, Gorgias, I wish that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to know them, he will have to learn of

SOCRATES: Say no more, for there you are right; and so he whom you make a rhetorician must either know

SOCRATES: And he who has learned medicine is a physician, in like manner? He who has learned anything

SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the

pugilist makes a wrong use of his pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust

use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the

wrongdoer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoriche is to be banishedwas not that said?

SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will never have done injustice at all?

SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric treated of discourse, not (like

SOCRATES: I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that rhetoric, which is always

discoursing about justice, could not possibly be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that

the rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise the inconsistency into which you had

fallen; and I said, that if you thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would be an

advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would leave off. And in the course of our investigations,

as you will see yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an unjust use of

rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. By the dog, Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before

POLUS: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now saying about rhetoric? What!

because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the good, and

admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could teach them, and then out of this

admission there arose a contradictionthe thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but you,

brought the argument by your captious questions(do you seriously believe that there is any truth in all

this?) For will any one ever acknowledge that he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of justice? The

truth is, that there is great want of manners in bringing the argument to such a pass.

SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with friends and children is, that when

we get old and stumble, a younger generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and in

our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you who should raise us up; and I for my part

engage to retract any error into which you may think that I have fallenupon one condition:

SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which you indulged at first.

SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to Athens, which is the most freespoken

state in Hellas, you when you got there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speechthat

would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:shall not I be very hardly used, if, when you are making

a long oration, and refusing to answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you, and may

not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have

any desire to set it on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn ask and answer,

like myself and Gorgiasrefute and be refuted: for I suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias

SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything which he pleases, and you will

POLUS: I will ask; and do you answer me, Socrates, the same question which Gorgias, as you suppose, is

SOCRATES: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours, you say that you have made an art.

SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when

SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight gratification to me?

SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification, Polus.

SOCRATES: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias should

imagine that I am making fun of his own profession. For whether or no this is that art of rhetoric which

Gorgias practises I really cannot tell:from what he was just now saying, nothing appeared of what he

thought of his art, but the rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.

SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the

habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word

'flattery'; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an

art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and not an art:another part is rhetoric, and the art of

attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to

them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is rhetoric: he

did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not

think rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first

answered, 'What is rhetoric?' For that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask

SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of

SOCRATES: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call what is bad ignoble: though I

SOCRATES: I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained myself, and our friend Polus, colt by

name and colt by nature, is apt to run away. (This is an untranslatable play on the name 'Polus,' which means

GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a

SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if I am mistaken, my friend Polus shall

SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition of either of them?

SOCRATES: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in appearance? I mean to say, that

there are many persons who appear to be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at

SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul: in either there may be that which

SOCRATES: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean: The soul and body

being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another

art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two

divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which

answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do

with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference.

Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest

good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations

of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates,

and having no regard for men's highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and

deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of

medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to

enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as

to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death.

A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it

aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is

unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational

thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them.

Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a

flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the

help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect

I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the manner of the geometricians (for I think

And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near

connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do

other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance

of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was

made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the

word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and

wide: 'Chaos' would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass.

And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body.

I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length.

But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer

when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an explanation. And if I show an equal inability to

make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have

the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer.

SOCRATES: Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do

POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers?

SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens.

POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please.

SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an

SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and

SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one, and I will answer both of them. And

I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying;

SOCRATES: No, by the greatwhat do you call him?not you, for you say that power is a good to him

SOCRATES: And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks best, this is a good, and would you

SOCRATES: Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and that rhetoric is an art and not a

flatteryand so you will have refuted me; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what

they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if as you

say, power be indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil.

SOCRATES: How then can the rhetoricians or the tyrants have great power in states, unless Polus can refute

SOCRATES: Good words, good Polus, as I may say in your own peculiar style; but if you have any

questions to ask of me, either prove that I am in error or give the answer yourself.

SOCRATES: Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or to will that further end for the sake of

which they do a thing? when they take medicine, for example, at the bidding of a physician, do they will the

drinking of the medicine which is painful, or the health for the sake of which they drink?

SOCRATES: And when men go on a voyage or engage in business, they do not will that which they are

doing at the time; for who would desire to take the risk of a voyage or the trouble of business?But they

SOCRATES: And is not this universally true? If a man does something for the sake of something else, he

SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate and indifferent?

SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites evils?

SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which partake sometimes of the nature of

good and at other times of evil, or of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again, wood,

SOCRATES: Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the

SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the idea that it is better to walk,

SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil him of his goods, because, as we

SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of something else, we do not will

those things which we do, but that other thing for the sake of which we do them?

SOCRATES: Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or to despoil him of his goods, but we

will to do that which conduces to our good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for

we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not

SOCRATES: Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant or a rhetorician, kills another or

exiles another or deprives him of his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when really

SOCRATES: But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do you not answer?

SOCRATES: Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one have great power in a state?

SOCRATES: Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good to him in a state, and not have

POLUS: As though you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of doing what seemed good to you in the

state, rather than not; you would not be jealous when you saw any one killing or despoiling or imprisoning

SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them.

POLUS: And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and

SOCRATES: No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he is to be envied.

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case he is also to be pitied; and he is not

POLUS: At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death is wretched, and to be pitied?

SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he who is justly killed.

SOCRATES: That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest of evils.

SOCRATES: I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do.

POLUS: I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good to you in a state, killing,

SOCRATES: Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you reply to me. Suppose that I go

into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power,

and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man

whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he

will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do

not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any one

may have great powerhe may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the

Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private but can you believe that this mere doing as

SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power is a benefit to a man if his

actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an

evil and is no power. But let us look at the matter in another way:do we not acknowledge that the things of

which we were speaking, the infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property are sometimes a

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when that they are evilwhat principle

POLUS: I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask that question.

SOCRATES: Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me, I say that they are good when

POLUS: You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute that statement?

SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful to you if you will refute me and

deliver me from my foolishness. And I hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing good to a friend.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity; events which happened only a few days

ago are enough to refute you, and to prove that many men who do wrong are happy.

POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia?

POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him, whether a man is

POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whether the great king was a

SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in the matter of education and

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who are gentle and good are also

POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to the throne which he now occupies, he

being only the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore in

strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do rightly he would have remained his slave, and

then, according to your doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably miserable, for he has

been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him,

under the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas has usurped, and after entertaining

him and his son Alexander, who was his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk,

he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew them, and got both of them out of the

way; and when he had done all this wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of all

men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? he had a younger brother,

a child of seven years old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the kingdom

belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought and restore the kingdom to him; that

was not his notion of happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned him, and

declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while running after a goose, and had been killed. And

now as he is the greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserable and

not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them,

SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather than a reasoner. And this, as I

suppose, is the sort of argument with which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand

refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good friend, where is the refutation? I cannot

SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians

practise in courts of law. For there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a

number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or

none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may often be sworn down by a

multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one,

Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my

statement;you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the

row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summon Aristocrates,

the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the

whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose; they will all agree with

you: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false

witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that

nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words; nor

by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two

ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another sortlet us

compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is

honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and miserythat is the chief of

them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? And therefore I will

begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy,

seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion?

SOCRATES: But I say that this is an impossibilityhere is one point about which we are at issue:very

good. And do you mean to say also that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be happy?

SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy?

SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,more

miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be

SOCRATES: I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a friend I regard you. Then these are

the points at issue between usare they not? I was saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice?

SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who are punished are less

POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant, and when

detected is racked, mutilated, has his eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted

on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive,

will he be happier than if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life doing what he likes

and holding the reins of government, the envy and admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the

SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead of refuting me; just now you were

calling witnesses against me. But please to refresh my memory a little; did you say'in an unjust attempt to

SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the other, neither he who unjustly

acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but

that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is

a new kind of refutation,when any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.

POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no

SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my tribe were serving as Prytanes,

and it became my duty as their president to take the votes, there was a laugh at me, because I was unable to

take them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I

was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial of the sort

of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is

the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do,

and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words

put to the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really believe, that to do is a greater

POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for example, suffer rather than do

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning:

which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is the worst?to do injustice or to suffer?

SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the honourable is not the same as the good,

SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colours,

figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for

example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators;

SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of

SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or

POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of

SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil?

SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the measure of the excess is to be

SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in

SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now made, about doing and suffering

wrong? Did you not say, that suffering wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?

SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the more disgraceful must be more

SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice exceeds the suffering in the

SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than

SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice is more disgraceful than to

SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a less one? Answer, Polus, and

fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as

SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any man, would rather do than suffer

SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. All men,

with the exception of myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for

me,I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and

now let us proceed to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer

punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed.

Consider:You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do

SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so far as they are just? Please to

SOCRATES: Consider again:Where there is an agent, must there not also be a patient?

SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does, and will not the suffering have the

quality of the action? I mean, for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is stricken?

SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struck will he struck violently or

SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as the act of him who strikes?

SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same

SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause pain, the cut will be of the same

SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition which I was just now asserting:

SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished is suffering or acting?

SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished suffers what is honourable?

SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the honourable is either pleasant or useful?

SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term 'benefited'? I mean, that if he be justly

SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at the matter in this way:In

SOCRATES: Again, in a man's bodily frame, you would say that the evil is weakness and disease and

SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of her own?

SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice, and the like?

SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have pointed out three corresponding

SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?Is not the most disgraceful of them injustice,

SOCRATES: I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already admitted to be most painful or hurtful,

SOCRATES: And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted by us to be most disgraceful?

SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing excessive pain, or most hurtful,

SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly and ignorant, is more painful than to

POLUS: Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow from your premises.

SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil of the soul is of all evils the most

disgraceful; and the excess of disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or extraordinary

SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the greatest of evils?

SOCRATES: Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity of the soul, are the greatest of

SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does not the art of making money?

SOCRATES: And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to answer at once, ask yourself whither

SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in accordance with a certain rule of

SOCRATES: Then the art of moneymaking frees a man from poverty; medicine from disease; and justice

SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or advantage or both?

SOCRATES: But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who are being healed pleased?

SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and this is the advantage of enduring

SOCRATES: And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who is healed, or who never was out

SOCRATES: Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having

SOCRATES: And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in their bodies, and that one of them

is healed and delivered from evil, and another is not healed, but retains the evilwhich of them is the most

SOCRATES: And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from the greatest of evils, which is

SOCRATES: And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the medicine of our vice?

SOCRATES: He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness who has never had vice in his soul; for

SOCRATES: Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no deliverance from injustice?

SOCRATES: That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes, and who, being the most unjust of

men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or correction or punishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished

by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates? (Compare Republic.)

SOCRATES: May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to the conduct of a person who is

afflicted with the worst of diseases and yet contrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins

against his constitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child, he is afraid of the pain of being burned or

SOCRATES: He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and bodily vigour; and if we are

right, Polus, in our previous conclusions, they are in a like case who strive to evade justice, which they see to

be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not knowing how far more miserable a

companion a diseased soul is than a diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and

unholy. And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to avoid being released from the

greatest of evils; they provide themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of

persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what follows, or shall we draw out the consequences in

SOCRATES: Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice, is the greatest of evils?

SOCRATES: And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be released from this evil?

SOCRATES: To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of evils; but to do wrong and not to be punished,

SOCRATES: Well, and was not this the point in dispute, my friend? You deemed Archelaus happy, because

he was a very great criminal and unpunished: I, on the other hand, maintained that he or any other who like

him has done wrong and has not been punished, is, and ought to be, the most miserable of all men; and that

the doer of injustice is more miserable than the sufferer; and he who escapes punishment, more miserable

SOCRATES: Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use of rhetoric? If we admit what has been

just now said, every man ought in every way to guard himself against doing wrong, for he will thereby suffer

SOCRATES: And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does wrong, he ought of his own accord to go

where he will be immediately punished; he will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that

the disease of injustice may not be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of the soul; must we not

allow this consequence, Polus, if our former admissions are to stand:is any other inference consistent with

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to excuse his own injustice, that of his

parents or friends, or children or country; but may be of use to any one who holds that instead of excusing he

ought to accusehimself above all, and in the next degree his family or any of his friends who may be doing

wrong; he should bring to light the iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrongdoer may suffer and be

made whole; and he should even force himself and others not to shrink, but with closed eyes like brave men

to let the physician operate with knife or searing iron, not regarding the pain, in the hope of attaining the good

and the honourable; let him who has done things worthy of stripes, allow himself to be scourged, if of bonds,

to be bound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of death, to die, himself being the first to

accuse himself and his own relations, and using rhetoric to this end, that his and their unjust actions may be

made manifest, and that they themselves may be delivered from injustice, which is the greatest evil. Then,

POLUS: To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very strange, though probably in agreement with your

SOCRATES: And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our duty to harm another, whether an

enemy or notI except the case of selfdefence then I have to be upon my guardbut if my enemy

injures a third person, then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I should try to prevent his being

punished, or appearing before the judge; and if he appears, I should contrive that he should escape, and not

suffer punishment: if he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep what he has stolen and spend it on him and

his, regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather

be immortal in his wickedness; or, if this is not possible, let him at any rate be allowed to live as long as he

can. For such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if of any use to him who is not

intending to commit injustice; at least, there was no such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.

CHAEREPHON: I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound earnest; but you may well ask him.

CALLICLES: By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in earnest, or only in jest? For if you are in

earnest, and what you say is true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down; and are we not doing, as

SOCRATES: O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings among mankind, however varying

in different personsI mean to say, if every man's feelings were peculiar to himself and were not shared by

the rest of his speciesI do not see how we could ever communicate our impressions to one another. I make

this remark because I perceive that you and I have a common feeling. For we are lovers both, and both of us

have two loves apiece:I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias, and of philosophy; and you of the

Athenian Demus, and of Demus the son of Pyrilampes. Now, I observe that you, with all your cleverness, do

not venture to contradict your favourite in any word or opinion of his; but as he changes you change,

backwards and forwards. When the Athenian Demus denies anything that you are saying in the assembly, you

go over to his opinion; and you do the same with Demus, the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not

the power to resist the words and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express surprise at the

strangeness of what you say from time to time when under their influence, you would probably reply to him,

if you were honest, that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are prevented; and that you

can only be silent when they are. Now you must understand that my words are an echo too, and therefore you

need not wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who is my love, for she is always

telling me what I am now telling you, my friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son of

Cleinias says one thing today and another thing tomorrow, but philosophy is always true. She is the

teacher at whose words you are now wondering, and you have heard her yourself. Her you must refute, and

either show, as I was saying, that to do injustice and to escape punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if

you leave her word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be

at one with himself, but that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre

should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided; aye, or that the

whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with

CALLICLES: O Socrates, you are a regular declaimer, and seem to be running riot in the argument. And

now you are declaiming in this way because Polus has fallen into the same error himself of which he accused

Gorgias:for he said that when Gorgias was asked by you, whether, if some one came to him who wanted to

learn rhetoric, and did not know justice, he would teach him justice, Gorgias in his modesty replied that he

would, because he thought that mankind in general would be displeased if he answered 'No'; and then in

consequence of this admission, Gorgias was compelled to contradict himself, that being just the sort of thing

in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at you deservedly, as I think; but now he has himself fallen

into the same trap. I cannot say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that to do is more

dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission which led to his being entangled by you;

and because he was too modest to say what he thought, he had his mouth stopped. For the truth is, Socrates,

that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to the popular and vulgar

notions of right, which are not natural, but only conventional. Convention and nature are generally at variance

with one another: and hence, if a person is too modest to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict

himself; and you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be thereby gained, slyly ask of him who is

arguing conventionally a question which is to be determined by the rule of nature; and if he is talking of the

rule of nature, you slip away to custom: as, for instance, you did in this very discussion about doing and

suffering injustice. When Polus was speaking of the conventionally dishonourable, you assailed him from the

point of view of nature; for by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgrace because the greater

evil; but conventionally, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a

man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is

unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of

laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to

themselves and to their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get

the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful

and unjust; meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more than his neighbours; for

knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavour to

have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice (compare

Republic), whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more

powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed

among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the

inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? (not to speak

of numberless other examples). Nay, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and

according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose

upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like

young lions, charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must

be content, and that the equal is the honourable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force,

he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas

and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord

over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when

'Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer from the deeds of Heracles, for without

I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that without buying them, and without their being

given to him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and

other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior. And this is true, as

you may ascertain, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy, Socrates, if

pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the

ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily

ignorant of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought to know; he is inexperienced in

the laws of the State, and in the language which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether

private or public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of human character in

general. And people of this sort, when they betake themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I

imagine the politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of philosophy. For, as Euripides

'Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest portion of the day to that in which he

but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and praises the opposite from partiality to

himself, and because he thinks that he will thus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them.

Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young

in pursuing such a study; but when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel

towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate children. For I love to see a little child, who

is not of an age to speak plainly, lisping at his play; there is an appearance of grace and freedom in his

utterance, which is natural to his childish years. But when I hear some small creature carefully articulating its

words, I am offended; the sound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of slavery. So when I hear a

man lisping, or see him playing like a child, his behaviour appears to me ridiculous and unmanly and worthy

of stripes. And I have the same feeling about students of philosophy; when I see a youth thus engaged,the

study appears to me to be in character, and becoming a man of liberal education, and him who neglects

philosophy I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspire to anything great or noble. But if I see him

continuing the study in later life, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as I was saying,

such a one, even though he have good natural parts, becomes effeminate. He flies from the busy centre and

the marketplace, in which, as the poet says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner for the rest

of his life, and talks in a whisper with three or four admiring youths, but never speaks out like a freeman in a

satisfactory manner. Now I, Socrates, am very well inclined towards you, and my feeling may be compared

with that of Zethus towards Amphion, in the play of Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now: for I am

disposed to say to you much what Zethus said to his brother, that you, Socrates, are careless about the things

'Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior; Neither in a court of justice could you state a

case, or give any reason or proof, Or offer valiant counsel on another's behalf.'

And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out of goodwill towards you, if I ask

whether you are not ashamed of being thus defenceless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only but

of all those who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose that some one were to take you, or

any one of your sort, off to prison, declaring that you had done wrong when you had done no wrong, you

must allow that you would not know what to do:there you would stand giddy and gaping, and not having a

word to say; and when you went up before the Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not good

for much, you would die if he were disposed to claim the penalty of death. And yet, Socrates, what is the

who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others, when he is in the greatest danger and is

going to be despoiled by his enemies of all his goods, and has to live, simply deprived of his rights of

citizenship?he being a man who, if I may use the expression, may be boxed on the ears with impunity.

'Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom. But leave to others these niceties,'

Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only the man of substance and honour,

SOCRATES: If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not rejoice to discover one of those stones

with which they test gold, and the very best possible one to which I might bring my soul; and if the stone and

I agreed in approving of her training, then I should know that I was in a satisfactory state, and that no other

SOCRATES: I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desired touchstone.

SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the opinions which my soul forms, I

have at last found the truth indeed. For I consider that if a man is to make a complete trial of the good or evil

of the soul, he ought to have three qualitiesknowledge, goodwill, outspokenness, which are all possessed

by you. Many whom I meet are unable to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are; others are

wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because they have not the same interest in me which you have; and

these two strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very good friends, but they are not

outspoken enough, and they are too modest. Why, their modesty is so great that they are driven to contradict

themselves, first one and then the other of them, in the face of a large company, on matters of the highest

moment. But you have all the qualities in which these others are deficient, having received an excellent

education; to this many Athenians can testify. And you are my friend. Shall I tell you why I think so? I know

that you, Callicles, and Tisander of Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of the deme

of Cholarges, studied together: there were four of you, and I once heard you advising with one another as to

the extent to which the pursuit of philosophy should be carried, and, as I know, you came to the conclusion

that the study should not be pushed too much into detail. You were cautioning one another not to be

overwise; you were afraid that too much wisdom might unconsciously to yourselves be the ruin of you. And

now when I hear you giving the same advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate friends, I have

a sufficient evidence of your real good will to me. And of the frankness of your nature and freedom from

modesty I am assured by yourself, and the assurance is confirmed by your last speech. Well then, the

inference in the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me in an argument about any point, that point

will have been sufficiently tested by us, and will not require to be submitted to any further test. For you could

not have agreed with me, either from lack of knowledge or from superfluity of modesty, nor yet from a desire

to deceive me, for you are my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you and I are agreed, the

result will be the attainment of perfect truth. Now there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you

censure me for making,What ought the character of a man to be, and what his pursuits, and how far is he to

go, both in maturer years and in youth? For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err

intentionally, but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, until I have

learned clearly what this is which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting to

your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call me 'dolt,' and deem me unworthy of

receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you

not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the

SOCRATES: And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? for I could not make out what you

were saying at the timewhether you meant by the superior the stronger, and that the weaker must obey the

stronger, as you seemed to imply when you said that great cities attack small ones in accordance with natural

right, because they are superior and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better were the same; or

whether the better may be also the inferior and weaker, and the superior the worse, or whether better is to be

defined in the same way as superior:this is the point which I want to have cleared up. Are the superior and

SOCRATES: Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against whom, as you were saying, they make

SOCRATES: Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior class are far better, as you were saying?

SOCRATES: And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them are by nature good?

SOCRATES: And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately saying, that justice is equality, and that to

do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice?is that so or not? Answer, Callicles, and let no modesty be

found to come in the way; do the many think, or do they not think thus?I must beg of you to answer, in

order that if you agree with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority.

SOCRATES: Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer

injustice, and that justice is equality; so that you seem to have been wrong in your former assertion, when

accusing me you said that nature and custom are opposed, and that I, knowing this, was dishonestly playing

between them, appealing to custom when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the argument is

CALLICLES: This man will never cease talking nonsense. At your age, Socrates, are you not ashamed to be

catching at words and chuckling over some verbal slip? do you not seehave I not told you already, that by

superior I mean better: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble of slaves and nondescripts, who are of no

use except perhaps for their physical strength, get together, their ipsissima verba are laws?

SOCRATES: I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must have been in your mind, and that is

why I repeated the question,What is the superior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant; for you surely

do not think that two men are better than one, or that your slaves are better than you because they are

stronger? Then please to begin again, and tell me who the better are, if they are not the stronger; and I will

ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder in your instructions, or I shall have to run away from you.

SOCRATES: No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just now saying many ironical things

SOCRATES: Do you not see that you are yourself using words which have no meaning and that you are

explaining nothing?will you tell me whether you mean by the better and superior the wiser, or if not,

SOCRATES: Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to ten thousand fools, and he

ought to rule them, and they ought to be his subjects, and he ought to have more than they should. This is

what I believe that you mean (and you must not suppose that I am wordcatching), if you allow that the one

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be natural justicethat the better and

SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this case: Let us suppose that we are all

together as we are now; there are several of us, and we have a large common store of meats and drinks, and

there are all sorts of persons in our company having various degrees of strength and weakness, and one of us,

being a physician, is wiser in the matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably stronger than some and

not so strong as others of uswill he not, being wiser, be also better than we are, and our superior in this

SOCRATES: Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats and drinks, because he is better, or he will

have the distribution of all of them by reason of his authority, but he will not expend or make use of a larger

share of them on his own person, or if he does, he will be punished; his share will exceed that of some, and

be less than that of others, and if he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will have the smallest share

CALLICLES: You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other nonsense; I am not speaking of

SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer 'Yes' or 'No.'

SOCRATES: I understand: then, perhaps, of coatsthe skilfullest weaver ought to have the largest coat,

and the greatest number of them, and go about clothed in the best and finest of them?

SOCRATES: Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought to have the advantage in shoes; the

shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them?

SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that the wise and good and true

husbandman should actually have a larger share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own

CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers and fullers and cooks and

SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiser in order to claim a

CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise

politicians who understand the administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able

SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge against you is from that which you

bring against me, for you reproach me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the

same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the better and the superior to be the stronger,

then again as the wiser, and now you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better are now declared

by you to be the more courageous: I wish, my good friend, that you would tell me, once for all, whom you

CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and courageous in the administration

of a statethey ought to be the rulers of their states, and justice consists in their having more than their

SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they not have more than themselves, my

SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think that there is no necessity for him

SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a man should be temperate and

CALLICLES: Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how can a man be happy who is the servant

of anything? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax

to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage

and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and

nobility. To this however the many cannot attain; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of

their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have

remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise

temperance and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had

a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil

than temperanceto a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to

stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over

him?must not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and temperance hinders from

giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city? Nay, Socrates, for you

profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this:that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be

provided with means, are virtue and happinessall the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature,

SOCRATES: There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of approaching the argument; for what you

say is what the rest of the world think, but do not like to say. And I must beg of you to persevere, that the true

rule of human life may become manifest. Tell me, then:you say, do you not, that in the rightlydeveloped

man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or

CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest of all.

SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and indeed I think that Euripides may

and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that at this moment we are actually dead, and

that the body (soma) is our tomb (sema (compare Phaedr.)), and that the part of the soul which is the seat of

the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down; and some ingenious person,

probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soulbecause

of its believing and makebelieve naturea vessel (An untranslatable pun,dia to pithanon te kai pistikon

onomase pithon.), and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the

uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a

vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he

declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world (aeides), these uninitiated or leaky

persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes out of a colander

which is similarly perforated. The colander, as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he

compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent,

owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle

which, if I can, I would fain prove to you; that you should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate

and insatiate life, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs. Do I

make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the

intemperate? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of the

SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the same school:Let me request you

to consider how far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in a

figure: There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and

full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the

streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and

difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble

with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty;

but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses

for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:And now would you say that the

life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the

CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any

pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is

SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to

SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a

CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily

SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no shame; I, too, must disencumber

myself of shame: and first, will you tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have

SOCRATES: That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and Gorgias, until they were too modest to

say what they thought; but you will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a brave man. And

SOCRATES: But what if the itching is not confined to the head? Shall I pursue the question? And here,

Callicles, I would have you consider how you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially

if in the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you

venture to say, that they too are happy, if they only get enough of what they want?

CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into the argument?

SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics, or he who says without any

qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction

between good and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good are the same,

CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they are the same.

SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no longer be a satisfactory

companion in the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.

SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask you to consider whether

pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences

SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question for me:There is something, I

SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied knowledge?

SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two things different from one another?

SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or not the same?

SOCRATES: Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian, says that pleasure and good are the

same; but that knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one another, or with the good.

CALLICLES: And what does our friend Socrates, of Foxton, saydoes he assent to this, or not?

SOCRATES: He does not assent; neither will Callicles, when he sees himself truly. You will admit, I

SOCRATES: And if they are opposed to each other, then, like health and disease, they exclude one another;

SOCRATES: Take the case of any bodily affection:a man may have the complaint in his eyes which is

SOCRATES: But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and sound at the same time?

SOCRATES: And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got rid of the health of his eyes too? Is the

SOCRATES: And does he have and not have good and happiness, and their opposites, evil and misery, in a

SOCRATES: If then there be anything which a man has and has not at the same time, clearly that cannot be

SOCRATES: Go back now to our former admissions.Did you say that to hunger, I mean the mere state of

SOCRATES: Need I adduce any more instances, or would you agree that all wants or desires are painful?

SOCRATES: Very good. And you would admit that to drink, when you are thirsty, is pleasant?

SOCRATES: And in the sentence which you have just uttered, the word 'thirsty' implies pain?

SOCRATES: And the word 'drinking' is expressive of pleasure, and of the satisfaction of the want?

SOCRATES: Do you see the inference:that pleasure and pain are simultaneous, when you say that being

thirsty, you drink? For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part,

whether of the soul or the body?which of them is affected cannot be supposed to be of any consequence: Is

SOCRATES: You said also, that no man could have good and evil fortune at the same time?

SOCRATES: Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the same as evil fortune, and therefore

CALLICLES: Well, get on, and don't keep fooling: then you will know what a wiseacre you are in your

SOCRATES: Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in drinking at the same time?

GORGIAS: Nay, Callicles, answer, if only for our sakes;we should like to hear the argument out.

CALLICLES: Yes, Gorgias, but I must complain of the habitual trifling of Socrates; he is always arguing

GORGIAS: What matter? Your reputation, Callicles, is not at stake. Let Socrates argue in his own fashion.

CALLICLES: Well, then, Socrates, you shall ask these little peddling questions, since Gorgias wishes to

SOCRATES: I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the great mysteries before you were

initiated into the lesser. I thought that this was not allowable. But to return to our argument:Does not a

SOCRATES: And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not cease from the desire and the pleasure

SOCRATES: But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment, as you have admitted: do you

SOCRATES: Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the same as the pleasant, or the evil the

same as the painful; there is a cessation of pleasure and pain at the same moment; but not of good and evil,

for they are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain as evil? And I would have you

look at the matter in another light, which could hardly, I think, have been considered by you when you

identified them: Are not the good good because they have good present with them, as the beautiful are those

SOCRATES: And do you call the fools and cowards good men? For you were saying just now that the

SOCRATES: And which rejoiced most at the departure of the enemy, the coward or the brave?

CALLICLES: I should say 'most' of both; or at any rate, they rejoiced about equally.

SOCRATES: And are only the cowards pained at the approach of their enemies, or are the brave also

SOCRATES: Then are the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the brave all pleased and pained, as you

were saying, in nearly equal degree; but are the cowards more pleased and pained than the brave?

SOCRATES: But surely the wise and brave are the good, and the foolish and the cowardly are the bad?

SOCRATES: Then the good and the bad are pleased and pained in a nearly equal degree?

SOCRATES: Then are the good and bad good and bad in a nearly equal degree, or have the bad the

SOCRATES: Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good because good was present with

SOCRATES: And are not these pleasures or goods present to those who rejoiceif they do rejoice?

SOCRATES: And would you still say that the evil are evil by reason of the presence of evil?

SOCRATES: The degrees of good and evil vary with the degrees of pleasure and of pain?

SOCRATES: Have the wise man and the fool, the brave and the coward, joy and pain in nearly equal

SOCRATES: Help me then to draw out the conclusion which follows from our admissions; for it is good to

repeat and review what is good twice and thrice over, as they say. Both the wise man and the brave man we

SOCRATES: The good and evil both have joy and pain, but, perhaps, the evil has more of them?

SOCRATES: Then must we not infer, that the bad man is as good and bad as the good, or, perhaps, even

better?is not this a further inference which follows equally with the preceding from the assertion that the

CALLICLES: I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates; and I remark that if a person

grants you anything in play, you, like a child, want to keep hold and will not give it back. But do you really

suppose that I or any other human being denies that some pleasures are good and others bad?

SOCRATES: Alas, Callicles, how unfair you are! you certainly treat me as if I were a child, sometimes

saying one thing, and then another, as if you were meaning to deceive me. And yet I thought at first that you

were my friend, and would not have deceived me if you could have helped. But I see that I was mistaken; and

now I suppose that I must make the best of a bad business, as they said of old, and take what I can get out of

you.Well, then, as I understand you to say, I may assume that some pleasures are good and others evil?

SOCRATES: And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the hurtful are those which do some

SOCRATES: Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking, which we were just now

mentioningyou mean to say that those which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and

SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I have agreed that all our actions are to be done for the

sake of the good;and will you agree with us in saying, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that

all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good, and not the good for the sake of them?will you add a

SOCRATES: Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the sake of that which is good, and not

SOCRATES: But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are evil, or must he have art or

SOCRATES: Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and Polus; I was saying, as you will

not have forgotten, that there were some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better

and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And I considered that cookery, which I

do not call an art, but only an experience, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure, and that

the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I

must beg you, Callicles, not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you; do not answer at random and

contrary to your real opinionfor you will observe that we are arguing about the way of human life; and to a

man who has any sense at all, what question can be more serious than this?whether he should follow after

that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you call the manly part of speaking in the assembly,

and cultivating rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles now in vogue; or whether

he should pursue the life of philosophy;and in what the latter way differs from the former. But perhaps we

had better first try to distinguish them, as I did before, and when we have come to an agreement that they are

distinct, we may proceed to consider in what they differ from one another, and which of them we should

SOCRATES: Then I will explain myself more clearly: seeing that you and I have agreed that there is such a

thing as good, and that there is such a thing as pleasure, and that pleasure is not the same as good, and that the

pursuit and process of acquisition of the one, that is pleasure, is different from the pursuit and process of

acquisition of the other, which is goodI wish that you would tell me whether you agree with me thus far or

SOCRATES: Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me, and whether you think that I

spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience,

and not an art at all; and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the

patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, cookery in attending upon pleasure never

regards either the nature or reason of that pleasure to which she devotes herself, but goes straight to her end,

nor ever considers or calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and just preserves the

recollection of what she has usually done when producing pleasure. And first, I would have you consider

whether I have proved what I was saying, and then whether there are not other similar processes which have

to do with the soulsome of them processes of art, making a provision for the soul's highest interest

others despising the interest, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how

this may be acquired, but not considering what pleasures are good or bad, and having no other aim but to

afford gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion, Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the

sort of thing which I term flattery, whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employed with

a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now I wish that you would tell me

CALLICLES: I do not differ; on the contrary, I agree; for in that way I shall soonest bring the argument to

SOCRATES: Then a man may delight a whole assembly, and yet have no regard for their true interests?

SOCRATES: Can you tell me the pursuits which delight mankindor rather, if you would prefer, let me

ask, and do you answer, which of them belong to the pleasurable class, and which of them not? In the first

place, what say you of fluteplaying? Does not that appear to be an art which seeks only pleasure, Callicles,

SOCRATES: And is not the same true of all similar arts, as, for example, the art of playing the lyre at

SOCRATES: And what do you say of the choral art and of dithyrambic poetry?are not they of the same

nature? Do you imagine that Cinesias the son of Meles cares about what will tend to the moral improvement

SOCRATES: And what do you say of his father, Meles the harpplayer? Did he perform with any view to

the good of his hearers? Could he be said to regard even their pleasure? For his singing was an infliction to

his audience. And of harpplaying and dithyrambic poetry in general, what would you say? Have they not

SOCRATES: And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and august personagewhat are her aspirations?

Is all her aim and desire only to give pleasure to the spectators, or does she fight against them and refuse to

speak of their pleasant vices, and willingly proclaim in word and song truths welcome and

CALLICLES: There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face turned towards pleasure and the

SOCRATES: And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, which we were just now describing as flattery?

SOCRATES: Well now, suppose that we strip all poetry of song and rhythm and metre, there will remain

SOCRATES: Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is addressed to a crowd of men,

women, and children, freemen and slaves. And this is not much to our taste, for we have described it as

SOCRATES: Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which addresses the Athenian assembly

and the assemblies of freemen in other states? Do the rhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best,

and do they seek to improve the citizens by their speeches, or are they too, like the rest of mankind, bent upon

giving them pleasure, forgetting the public good in the thought of their own interest, playing with the people

as with children, and trying to amuse them, but never considering whether they are better or worse for this?

CALLICLES: I must distinguish. There are some who have a real care of the public in what they say, while

SOCRATES: I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts; one, which is mere flattery and

disgraceful declamation; the other, which is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the souls of

the citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to the audience; but have you

ever known such a rhetoric; or if you have, and can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he?

CALLICLES: But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such among the orators who are at

SOCRATES: Well, then, can you mention any one of a former generation, who may be said to have

improved the Athenians, who found them worse and made them better, from the day that he began to make

CALLICLES: What! did you never hear that Themistocles was a good man, and Cimon and Miltiades and

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first, true virtue consists only in the

satisfaction of our own desires and those of others; but if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to

acknowledge, the satisfaction of some desires makes us better, and of others, worse, and we ought to gratify

the one and not the other, and there is an art in distinguishing them,can you tell me of any of these

SOCRATES: Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one. Suppose that we just calmly

consider whether any of these was such as I have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he

says with a view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random; just as all other

artists, whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and

do not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to it? The artist disposes

all things in order, and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has

constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the same way the trainers and

physicians, of whom we spoke before, give order and regularity to the body: do you deny this?

SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good; that in which there is disorder,

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be that in which disorder is prevalent,

SOCRATES: What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and order in the body?

SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name which you would give to the effect of harmony and order in

SOCRATES: Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall say whether you agree with me, and

if not, you shall refute and answer me. 'Healthy,' as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular order

of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily excellence: is that true or not?

SOCRATES: And 'lawful' and 'law' are the names which are given to the regular order and action of the

soul, and these make men lawful and orderly:and so we have temperance and justice: have we not?

SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and understands his art have his eye fixed upon

these, in all the words which he addresses to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in what he gives

and in what he takes away? Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of his citizens and take away

injustice, to implant temperance and take away intemperance, to implant every virtue and take away every

SOCRATES: For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the body of a sick man who is in a bad state of

health a quantity of the most delightful food or drink or any other pleasant thing, which may be really as bad

for him as if you gave him nothing, or even worse if rightly estimated. Is not that true?

SOCRATES: For in my opinion there is no profit in a man's life if his body is in an evil plightin that case

SOCRATES: When a man is in health the physicians will generally allow him to eat when he is hungry and

drink when he is thirsty, and to satisfy his desires as he likes, but when he is sick they hardly suffer him to

SOCRATES: And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir? While she is in a bad state and

is senseless and intemperate and unjust and unholy, her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to be

SOCRATES: Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul than intemperance or the absence of

CALLICLES: I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would ask some one who does.

SOCRATES: Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to subject himself to that very

CALLICLES: I do not heed a word of what you are saying, and have only answered hitherto out of civility

SOCRATES: Well, but people say that 'a tale should have a head and not break off in the middle,' and I

should not like to have the argument going about without a head (compare Laws); please then to go on a little

CALLICLES: How tyrannical you are, Socrates! I wish that you and your argument would rest, or that you

CALLICLES: Cannot you finish without my help, either talking straight on, or questioning and answering

SOCRATES: Must I then say with Epicharmus, 'Two men spoke before, but now one shall be enough'? I

suppose that there is absolutely no help. And if I am to carry on the enquiry by myself, I will first of all

remark that not only I but all of us should have an ambition to know what is true and what is false in this

matter, for the discovery of the truth is a common good. And now I will proceed to argue according to my

own notion. But if any of you think that I arrive at conclusions which are untrue you must interpose and

refute me, for I do not speak from any knowledge of what I am saying; I am an enquirer like yourselves, and

therefore, if my opponent says anything which is of force, I shall be the first to agree with him. I am speaking

on the supposition that the argument ought to be completed; but if you think otherwise let us leave off and go

GORGIAS: I think, Socrates, that we should not go our ways until you have completed the argument; and

this appears to me to be the wish of the rest of the company; I myself should very much like to hear what

SOCRATES: I too, Gorgias, should have liked to continue the argument with Callicles, and then I might

have given him an 'Amphion' in return for his 'Zethus'; but since you, Callicles, are unwilling to continue, I

hope that you will listen, and interrupt me if I seem to you to be in error. And if you refute me, I shall not be

angry with you as you are with me, but I shall inscribe you as the greatest of benefactors on the tablets of my

SOCRATES: Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument:Is the pleasant the same as the good?

Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the

good? or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued for the sake of the good. And

that is pleasant at the presence of which we are pleased, and that is good at the presence of which we are

good? To be sure. And we are good, and all good things whatever are good when some virtue is present in us

or them? That, Callicles, is my conviction. But the virtue of each thing, whether body or soul, instrument or

creature, when given to them in the best way comes to them not by chance but as the result of the order and

truth and art which are imparted to them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtue of each

thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes, I say. And that which makes a thing good is the proper order

inhering in each thing? Such is my view. And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than that

which has no order? Certainly. And the soul which has order is orderly? Of course. And that which is orderly

is temperate? Assuredly. And the temperate soul is good? No other answer can I give, Callicles dear; have

SOCRATES: Then I shall proceed to add, that if the temperate soul is the good soul, the soul which is in the

opposite condition, that is, the foolish and intemperate, is the bad soul. Very true.

And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to the gods and to men;for he would not

be temperate if he did not? Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is

just; and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy; and he who does what is just and holy must be

just and holy? Very true. And must he not be courageous? for the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or

to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to

endure when he ought; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have described, also just and

courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than

well and perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity be happy and blessed, and the

evil man who does evil, miserable: now this latter is he whom you were applaudingthe intemperate who is

the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true,

then I further affirm that he who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run away from

intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him: he had better order his life so as not to need punishment; but if

either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of punishment, then justice must

be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man

ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the state, acting so

that he may have temperance and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be

unrestrained, and in the neverending desire satisfy them leading a robber's life. Such a one is the friend

neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also

incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness

and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is

therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend. But although you are a philosopher you

seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men; you think

that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about geometry.Well, then, either the

principle that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable

miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be the consequences? All

the consequences which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in earnest

when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that

to this end he should use his rhetoricall those consequences are true. And that which you thought that

Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz., that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is

in that degree worse; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that

he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to

And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next place to consider whether you are

right in throwing in my teeth that I am unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them

in the extremity of danger, and that I am in the power of another like an outlaw to whom any one may do

what he likes,he may box my ears, which was a brave saying of yours; or take away my goods or banish

me, or even do his worst and kill me; a condition which, as you say, is the height of disgrace. My answer to

you is one which has been already often repeated, but may as well be repeated once more. I tell you,

Callicles, that to be boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worst evil which can befall a man, nor to have my

purse or my body cut open, but that to smite and slay me and mine wrongfully is far more disgraceful and

more evil; aye, and to despoil and enslave and pillage, or in any way at all to wrong me and mine, is far more

disgraceful and evil to the doer of the wrong than to me who am the sufferer. These truths, which have been

already set forth as I state them in the previous discussion, would seem now to have been fixed and riveted by

us, if I may use an expression which is certainly bold, in words which are like bonds of iron and adamant; and

unless you or some other still more enterprising hero shall break them, there is no possibility of denying what

I say. For my position has always been, that I myself am ignorant how these things are, but that I have never

met any one who could say otherwise, any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous. This is my position

still, and if what I am saying is true, and injustice is the greatest of evils to the doer of injustice, and yet there

is if possible a greater than this greatest of evils (compare Republic), in an unjust man not suffering

retribution, what is that defence of which the want will make a man truly ridiculous? Must not the defence be

one which will avert the greatest of human evils? And will not the worst of all defences be that with which a

man is unable to defend himself or his family or his friends? and next will come that which is unable to

avert the next greatest evil; thirdly that which is unable to avert the third greatest evil; and so of other evils.

As is the greatness of evil so is the honour of being able to avert them in their several degrees, and the

SOCRATES: Seeing then that there are these two evils, the doing injustice and the suffering injusticeand

we affirm that to do injustice is a greater, and to suffer injustice a lesser evilby what devices can a man

succeed in obtaining the two advantages, the one of not doing and the other of not suffering injustice? must

he have the power, or only the will to obtain them? I mean to ask whether a man will escape injustice if he

SOCRATES: And what do you say of doing injustice? Is the will only sufficient, and will that prevent him

from doing injustice, or must he have provided himself with power and art; and if he have not studied and

practised, will he be unjust still? Surely you might say, Callicles, whether you think that Polus and I were

right in admitting the conclusion that no one does wrong voluntarily, but that all do wrong against their will?

SOCRATES: Then, as would appear, power and art have to be provided in order that we may do no

SOCRATES: And what art will protect us from suffering injustice, if not wholly, yet as far as possible? I

want to know whether you agree with me; for I think that such an art is the art of one who is either a ruler or

CALLICLES: Well said, Socrates; and please to observe how ready I am to praise you when you talk sense.

SOCRATES: Think and tell me whether you would approve of another view of mine: To me every man

appears to be most the friend of him who is most like to himlike to like, as ancient sages say: Would you

SOCRATES: But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected to fear any one who is his

SOCRATES: Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his inferior, for the tyrant will despise

SOCRATES: Then the only friend worth mentioning, whom the tyrant can have, will be one who is of the

same character, and has the same likes and dislikes, and is at the same time willing to be subject and

subservient to him; he is the man who will have power in the state, and no one will injure him with

SOCRATES: And if a young man begins to ask how he may become great and formidable, this would seem

to be the wayhe will accustom himself, from his youth upward, to feel sorrow and joy on the same

SOCRATES: And in this way he will have accomplished, as you and your friends would say, the end of

SOCRATES: But will he also escape from doing injury? Must not the very opposite be true,if he is to be

like the tyrant in his injustice, and to have influence with him? Will he not rather contrive to do as much

SOCRATES: And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he thus acquires will not his soul

CALLICLES: You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to invert everything: do you not know that

he who imitates the tyrant will, if he has a mind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?

SOCRATES: Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have heard that a great many times from you and from

Polus and from nearly every man in the city, but I wish that you would hear me too. I dare say that he will kill

SOCRATES: Nay, not to a man of sense, as the argument shows: do you think that all our cares should be

directed to prolonging life to the uttermost, and to the study of those arts which secure us from danger

always; like that art of rhetoric which saves men in courts of law, and which you advise me to cultivate?

SOCRATES: Well, my friend, but what do you think of swimming; is that an art of any great pretensions?

SOCRATES: And yet surely swimming saves a man from death, and there are occasions on which he must

know how to swim. And if you despise the swimmers, I will tell you of another and greater art, the art of the

pilot, who not only saves the souls of men, but also their bodies and properties from the extremity of danger,

just like rhetoric. Yet his art is modest and unpresuming: it has no airs or pretences of doing anything

extraordinary, and, in return for the same salvation which is given by the pleader, demands only two obols, if

he brings us from Aegina to Athens, or for the longer voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at the utmost two

drachmae, when he has saved, as I was just now saying, the passenger and his wife and children and goods,

and safely disembarked them at the Piraeus,this is the payment which he asks in return for so great a boon;

and he who is the master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walks about on the seashore by his

ship in an unassuming way. For he is able to reflect and is aware that he cannot tell which of his

fellowpassengers he has benefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be drowned.

He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them as when they embarked, and not a whit

better either in their bodies or in their souls; and he considers that if a man who is afflicted by great and

incurable bodily diseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, and is in no way benefited by him in having

been saved from drowning, much less he who has great and incurable diseases, not of the body, but of the

soul, which is the more valuable part of him; neither is life worth having nor of any profit to the bad man,

whether he be delivered from the sea, or the lawcourts, or any other devourer;and so he reflects that such

And this is the reason why the pilot, although he is our saviour, is not usually conceited, any more than the

engineer, who is not at all behind either the general, or the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power, for he

sometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison between him and the pleader? And if he were to talk,

Callicles, in your grandiose style, he would bury you under a mountain of words, declaring and insisting that

we ought all of us to be enginemakers, and that no other profession is worth thinking about; he would have

plenty to say. Nevertheless you despise him and his art, and sneeringly call him an enginemaker, and you

will not allow your daughters to marry his son, or marry your son to his daughters. And yet, on your

principle, what justice or reason is there in your refusal? What right have you to despise the enginemaker,

and the others whom I was just now mentioning? I know that you will say, 'I am better, and better born.' But

if the better is not what I say, and virtue consists only in a man saving himself and his, whatever may be his

character, then your censure of the enginemaker, and of the physician, and of the other arts of salvation, is

ridiculous. O my friend! I want you to see that the noble and the good may possibly be something different

from saving and being saved:May not he who is truly a man cease to care about living a certain time?he

knows, as women say, that no man can escape fate, and therefore he is not fond of life; he leaves all that with

God, and considers in what way he can best spend his appointed term;whether by assimilating himself to

the constitution under which he lives, as you at this moment have to consider how you may become as like as

possible to the Athenian people, if you mean to be in their good graces, and to have power in the state;

whereas I want you to think and see whether this is for the interest of either of us;I would not have us risk

that which is dearest on the acquisition of this power, like the Thessalian enchantresses, who, as they say,

bring down the moon from heaven at the risk of their own perdition. But if you suppose that any man will

show you the art of becoming great in the city, and yet not conforming yourself to the ways of the city,

whether for better or worse, then I can only say that you are mistaken, Callides; for he who would deserve to

be the true natural friend of the Athenian Demus, aye, or of Pyrilampes' darling who is called after them,

must be by nature like them, and not an imitator only. He, then, who will make you most like them, will make

you as you desire, a statesman and orator: for every man is pleased when he is spoken to in his own language

and spirit, and dislikes any other. But perhaps you, sweet Callicles, may be of another mind. What do you

CALLICLES: Somehow or other your words, Socrates, always appear to me to be good words; and yet, like

the rest of the world, I am not quite convinced by them. (Compare Symp.: 1 Alcib.)

SOCRATES: The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Demus which abides in your soul is an adversary to

me; but I dare say that if we recur to these same matters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be

convinced for all that. Please, then, to remember that there are two processes of training all things, including

body and soul; in the one, as we said, we treat them with a view to pleasure, and in the other with a view to

the highest good, and then we do not indulge but resist them: was not that the distinction which we drew?

SOCRATES: And the one which had pleasure in view was just a vulgar flattery:was not that another of

SOCRATES: And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that which was ministered to, whether

SOCRATES: And must we not have the same end in view in the treatment of our city and citizens? Must we

not try and make them as good as possible? For we have already discovered that there is no use in imparting

to them any other good, unless the mind of those who are to have the good, whether money, or office, or any

SOCRATES: Well, then, if you and I, Callicles, were intending to set about some public business, and were

advising one another to undertake buildings, such as walls, docks or temples of the largest size, ought we not

to examine ourselves, first, as to whether we know or do not know the art of building, and who taught

SOCRATES: In the second place, we should have to consider whether we had ever constructed any private

house, either of our own or for our friends, and whether this building of ours was a success or not; and if

upon consideration we found that we had had good and eminent masters, and had been successful in

constructing many fine buildings, not only with their assistance, but without them, by our own unaided

skillin that case prudence would not dissuade us from proceeding to the construction of public works. But

if we had no master to show, and only a number of worthless buildings or none at all, then, surely, it would

be ridiculous in us to attempt public works, or to advise one another to undertake them. Is not this true?

SOCRATES: And does not the same hold in all other cases? If you and I were physicians, and were advising

one another that we were competent to practise as statephysicians, should I not ask about you, and would

you not ask about me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good health? and was any one else ever

known to be cured by him, whether slave or freeman? And I should make the same enquiries about you. And

if we arrived at the conclusion that no one, whether citizen or stranger, man or woman, had ever been any the

better for the medical skill of either of us, then, by Heaven, Callicles, what an absurdity to think that we or

any human being should be so silly as to set up as statephysicians and advise others like ourselves to do the

same, without having first practised in private, whether successfully or not, and acquired experience of the

art! Is not this, as they say, to begin with the big jar when you are learning the potter's art; which is a foolish

SOCRATES: And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a public character, and are

admonishing and reproaching me for not being one, suppose that we ask a few questions of one another. Tell

me, then, Callicles, how about making any of the citizens better? Was there ever a man who was once

vicious, or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and became by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there

ever such a man, whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman? Tell me, Callicles, if a person were to ask

these questions of you, what would you answer? Whom would you say that you had improved by your

conversation? There may have been good deeds of this sort which were done by you as a private person,

SOCRATES: Nay, I ask you, not from a love of contention, but because I really want to know in what way

you think that affairs should be administered among uswhether, when you come to the administration of

them, you have any other aim but the improvement of the citizens? Have we not already admitted many times

over that such is the duty of a public man? Nay, we have surely said so; for if you will not answer for

yourself I must answer for you. But if this is what the good man ought to effect for the benefit of his own

state, allow me to recall to you the names of those whom you were just now mentioning, Pericles, and

Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles, and ask whether you still think that they were good citizens.

SOCRATES: But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have made the citizens better instead of

SOCRATES: And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the assembly, the Athenians were not so

SOCRATES: Nay, my friend, 'likely' is not the word; for if he was a good citizen, the inference is certain.

SOCRATES: None; only I should like further to know whether the Athenians are supposed to have been

made better by Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been corrupted by him; for I hear that he was the first

who gave the people pay, and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in the love of talk and

CALLICLES: You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set who bruise their ears.

SOCRATES: But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but well known both to you and me:

that at first, Pericles was glorious and his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Atheniansthis was

during the time when they were not so goodyet afterwards, when they had been made good and gentle by

him, at the very end of his life they convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the

SOCRATES: Why, surely you would say that he was a bad manager of asses or horses or oxen, who had

received them originally neither kicking nor butting nor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage

tricks? Would he not be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle, and made them fiercer than

SOCRATES: And will you also do me the favour of saying whether man is an animal?

SOCRATES: And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals who were his subjects, as we

SOCRATES: And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?or are you of another mind?

SOCRATES: And yet he really did make them more savage than he received them, and their savageness was

SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not have been more unjust and inferior?

SOCRATES: Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take the case of Cimon again. Did not

the very persons whom he was serving ostracize him, in order that they might not hear his voice for ten

years? and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile; and they voted that Miltiades,

the hero of Marathon, should be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis. And yet,

if they had been really good men, as you say, these things would never have happened to them. For the good

charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and then, when they have brokenin their horses, and

themselves become better charioteers, are thrown outthat is not the way either in charioteering or in any

SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that in the Athenian State no one has ever

shown himself to be a good statesman you admitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but not true

of former ones, and you preferred them to the others; yet they have turned out to be no better than our present

ones; and therefore, if they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or of flattery, or they

CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near any one of them in his performances.

SOCRATES: O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as the servingmen of the State; and I

do think that they were certainly more serviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify

the wishes of the State; but as to transforming those desires and not allowing them to have their way, and

using the powers which they had, whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of their fellow

citizens, which is the prime object of the truly good citizen, I do not see that in these respects they were a

whit superior to our present statesmen, although I do admit that they were more clever at providing ships and

walls and docks, and all that. You and I have a ridiculous way, for during the whole time that we are arguing,

we are always going round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstanding one another. If I am

not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more than once, that there are two kinds of operations

which have to do with the body, and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is ministerial, and if

our bodies are hungry provides food for them, and if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are cold

supplies them with garments, blankets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same images as before

intentionally, in order that you may understand me the better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them

either wholesale or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them, the baker, or the cook, or the weaver, or

the shoemaker, or the currier; and in so doing, being such as he is, he is naturally supposed by himself and

every one to minister to the body. For none of them know that there is another artan art of gymnastic and

medicine which is the true minister of the body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to use their

results according to the knowledge which she has and they have not, of the real good or bad effects of meats

and drinks on the body. All other arts which have to do with the body are servile and menial and illiberal; and

gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their mistresses. Now, when I say that all this is equally true

of the soul, you seem at first to know and understand and assent to my words, and then a little while

afterwards you come repeating, Has not the State had good and noble citizens? and when I ask you who they

are, you reply, seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who are or have been good trainers?and you

had replied, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookerybook, Sarambus, the vintner:

these are ministers of the body, firstrate in their art; for the first makes admirable loaves, the second

excellent dishes, and the third capital wine;to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen

whom you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I said to you, My friend, you know nothing

of gymnastics; those of whom you are speaking to me are only the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who

have no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fattening men's bodies and

gaining their approval, although the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long run, and become

thinner than they were before; and yet they, in their simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and loss of

flesh to their entertainers; but when in after years the unhealthy surfeit brings the attendant penalty of disease,

he who happens to be near them at the time, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if

they could they would do him some harm; while they proceed to eulogize the men who have been the real

authors of the mischief. And that, Callicles, is just what you are now doing. You praise the men who feasted

the citizens and satisfied their desires, and people say that they have made the city great, not seeing that the

swollen and ulcerated condition of the State is to be attributed to these elder statesmen; for they have filled

the city full of harbours and docks and walls and revenues and all that, and have left no room for justice and

temperance. And when the crisis of the disorder comes, the people will blame the advisers of the hour, and

applaud Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real authors of their calamities; and if you are not

careful they may assail you and my friend Alcibiades, when they are losing not only their new acquisitions,

but also their original possessions; not that you are the authors of these misfortunes of theirs, although you

may perhaps be accessories to them. A great piece of work is always being made, as I see and am told, now

as of old; about our statesmen. When the State treats any of them as malefactors, I observe that there is a

great uproar and indignation at the supposed wrong which is done to them; 'after all their many services to the

State, that they should unjustly perish,'so the tale runs. But the cry is all a lie; for no statesman ever could

be unjustly put to death by the city of which he is the head. The case of the professed statesman is, I believe,

very much like that of the professed sophist; for the sophists, although they are wise men, are nevertheless

guilty of a strange piece of folly; professing to be teachers of virtue, they will often accuse their disciples of

wronging them, and defrauding them of their pay, and showing no gratitude for their services. Yet what can

be more absurd than that men who have become just and good, and whose injustice has been taken away

from them, and who have had justice implanted in them by their teachers, should act unjustly by reason of the

injustice which is not in them? Can anything be more irrational, my friends, than this? You, Callicles, compel

CALLICLES: And you are the man who cannot speak unless there is some one to answer?

SOCRATES: I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the speeches which I am making are long enough

because you refuse to answer me. But I adjure you by the god of friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether

there does not appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying that you have made a man good, and then

SOCRATES: Do you never hear our professors of education speaking in this inconsistent manner?

SOCRATES: I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers, and declare that they are devoted

to the improvement of the city, and nevertheless upon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the city:

do you think that there is any difference between one and the other? My good friend, the sophist and the

rhetorician, as I was saying to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same; but you ignorantly fancy that rhetoric

is a perfect thing, and sophistry a thing to be despised; whereas the truth is, that sophistry is as much superior

to rhetoric as legislation is to the practice of law, or gymnastic to medicine. The orators and sophists, as I am

inclined to think, are the only class who cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves from that

which they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves of having done no good to those

SOCRATES: If they were right in saying that they make men better, then they are the only class who can

afford to leave their remuneration to those who have been benefited by them. Whereas if a man has been

benefited in any other way, if, for example, he has been taught to run by a trainer, he might possibly defraud

him of his pay, if the trainer left the matter to him, and made no agreement with him that he should receive

money as soon as he had given him the utmost speed; for not because of any deficiency of speed do men act

SOCRATES: And he who removes injustice can be in no danger of being treated unjustly: he alone can

safely leave the honorarium to his pupils, if he be really able to make them goodam I not right? (Compare

SOCRATES: Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonour in a man receiving pay who is called

SOCRATES: But when the point is, how a man may become best himself, and best govern his family and

state, then to say that you will give no advice gratis is held to be dishonourable?

SOCRATES: And why? Because only such benefits call forth a desire to requite them, and there is evidence

that a benefit has been conferred when the benefactor receives a return; otherwise not. Is this true?

SOCRATES: Then to which service of the State do you invite me? determine for me. Am I to be the

physician of the State who will strive and struggle to make the Athenians as good as possible; or am I to be

the servant and flatterer of the State? Speak out, my good friend, freely and fairly as you did at first and ought

CALLICLES: The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please. For if you refuse, the consequences will be

SOCRATES: Do not repeat the old storythat he who likes will kill me and get my money; for then I shall

have to repeat the old answer, that he will be a bad man and will kill the good, and that the money will be of

no use to him, but that he will wrongly use that which he wrongly took, and if wrongly, basely, and if basely,

CALLICLES: How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to harm! you seem to think that

you are living in another country, and can never be brought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be

SOCRATES: Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know that in the Athenian State any man

may suffer anything. And if I am brought to trial and incur the dangers of which you speak, he will be a

villain who brings me to trialof that I am very sure, for no good man would accuse the innocent. Nor shall

SOCRATES: I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living who practises the true art of

politics; I am the only politician of my time. Now, seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with

any view of gaining favour, and that I look to what is best and not to what is most pleasant, having no mind

to use those arts and graces which you recommend, I shall have nothing to say in the justice court. And you

might argue with me, as I was arguing with Polus:I shall be tried just as a physician would be tried in a

court of little boys at the indictment of the cook. What would he reply under such circumstances, if some one

were to accuse him, saying, 'O my boys, many evil things has this man done to you: he is the death of you,

especially of the younger ones among you, cutting and burning and starving and suffocating you, until you

know not what to do; he gives you the bitterest potions, and compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the

variety of meats and sweets on which I feasted you!' What do you suppose that the physician would be able to

reply when he found himself in such a predicament? If he told the truth he could only say, 'All these evil

things, my boys, I did for your health,' and then would there not just be a clamour among a jury like that?

SOCRATES: And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well know, if I am brought before the court.

For I shall not be able to rehearse to the people the pleasures which I have procured for them, and which,

although I am not disposed to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of them, are deemed by them to be

benefits and advantages. And if any one says that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I

speak evil of old men, and use bitter words towards them, whether in private or public, it is useless for me to

reply, as I truly might:'All this I do for the sake of justice, and with a view to your interest, my judges, and

CALLICLES: And do you think, Socrates, that a man who is thus defenceless is in a good position?

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you have often acknowledged he should

haveif he be his own defence, and have never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or

men; and this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of defence. And if any one could

convict me of inability to defend myself or others after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was

convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and if I died from want of ability to do so, that

would indeed grieve me. But if I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure that you

would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself,

but he is afraid of doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one's soul full of injustice is the last and

worst of all evils. And in proof of what I say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.

SOCRATES: Listen, then, as storytellers say, to a very pretty tale, which I dare say that you may be

disposed to regard as a fable only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer

tells us (Il.), how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited from their father.

Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and still

continues to be in Heaven,that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is

dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he

who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called

Tartarus. And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the judgment was given on the

very day on which the men were to die; the judges were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence

was that the judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of the Blessed

came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: 'I shall put a stop to this;

the judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have their clothes on, for they are

alive; and there are many who, having evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank,

and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that they

have lived righteously. The judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when

judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a

hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged.What is to be done? I

will tell you:In the first place, I will deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at

present: this power which they have Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them: in the

second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall be judged when they are

dead; and the judge too shall be naked, that is to say, deadhe with his naked soul shall pierce into the other

naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire

strewn upon the earthconducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter

before any of you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and

one from Europe, Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment in the meadow at the parting

of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus.

Rhadamanthus shall judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe. And to

Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of appeal, in case either of the two others are in any

doubt:then the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as possible.'

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences:Death, if I am

right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And

after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps the same habit, and the

results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or both,

was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and

so on; and the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was

marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might

see the same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same

appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would

be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should

imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural or

acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view. And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia

come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the

soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has

no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries and

crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has

no straightness, because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and

disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him

ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly punished ought either to become better and

profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and

become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and men, are those whose sins are

curable; and they are improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering; for there is no other

way in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and

are incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the time has passed at

which they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them

enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the penalty of their sinsthere they

are, hanging up as examples, in the prisonhouse of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to all

unrighteous men who come thither. And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be found Archelaus, if

Polus truly reports of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as I believe,

are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the

greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this; for

they are always kings and potentates whom he has described as suffering everlasting punishment in the world

below: such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites, or any private

person who was a villain, as suffering everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the worst

crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not in his power, and he was happier than those who had the power. No,

Callicles, the very bad men come from the class of those who have power (compare Republic). And yet in

that very class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are, for where there is great

power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who

attain to this. Such good and true men, however, there have been, and will be again, at Athens and in other

states, who have fulfilled their trust righteously; and there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas,

Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.

As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows nothing about him, neither who

he is, nor who his parents are; he knows only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him

as curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and receives his proper recompense.

Or, again, he looks with admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and truth; he may

have been a private man or not; and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopher

who has done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of other men in his lifetime; him

Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and

judge; but Minos alone has a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in Homer declares that he

Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole

and undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to

know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my

power, I exhort all other men to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to

take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. And I

retort your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of trial and

judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and,

when he has got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your head will swim round, just as

mine would in the courts of this world, and very likely some one will shamefully box you on the ears, and put

Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife's tale, which you will contemn. And there might be

reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything better or truer: but now you

see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, are not able to show

that we ought to live any life which does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of all that has

been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer

injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well in

public as in private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the

next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and be chastised and punished; also that he

should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric and any other

art should be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a view to justice.

Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and after death, as the argument shows.

And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by

Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm

in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together, we

will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good

to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs,

for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let us,

then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise justice

and every virtue in life and death. This way let us go; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to

which you trust and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way, Callicles, is nothing worth.